Formatting ebooks - no job for the techno-ignoramus

For several weeks now, I've been slaving over the old Shadow Warriors manuscript.  I wanted it to be not just on Amazon, where it sits now, but available for Apple, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, Diesel ebook store and other outlets.   Enter Smashwords.
I've been working on Word since Windows was a toddler, both in business and writing, so I thought myself pretty knowledgeable. 
I didn't know nuthin.'  But I did learn, and once I format a few more manuscripts I'll be the format guru.  Well, maybe.  I'm a detail oriented person (years of computer programming and writing), but formatting details tend to be, well, sort of boring.    Tedious, even.  But ya gotta do it.  Smashwords Style Guide
Last feedback was to get the return characters out of my copyright statement and remove the second chapter 20.  Gee, I wondered why the word count had increased.  Hoping to get into the "Premier Catalog" before the holidays.  Last year, The Shadow Warriors became available at Amazon on December 22nd.  Merry Christmas!  Hope it's earlier this  year.   Whoever thought those pesky warriors  (AKA software agents)  would hang around so long.
A reader found a hilarious typo in a recipe in the back of the book.  Yes, there are a few German recipes.  You get a lot to like with 'Warriors.'  I wrote "white whine" when I meant, well, you know what I meant.  I fixed it of course.  Darn!  It was so funny.  Sometimes fingers do the damndest things.        

If you have a Kindle, buy the book just for the recipes.  All tested for YEARS!    Cheap to make.  Tasty.  Nothing fancy.  End of ad.

In a subsequent post I hope to announce the book is available on all these devices.  If you have a Kindle, you may want to take a gander at this web site:  Kindlemojo

Welcome Italia and Espana

The Shadow Warriors is now available on Amazon in Italy and in Spain.  I'm so excited about Spain after just having traveled there.  We were so impressed with the history, the art, culture, the superb hams and the wonderful paradores.  So much to take in. My feet have just about recovered from the cobblestones.  I've always adored Italy, too.  So cool to walk into a tiny trattoria and when the waiter appears without menu, just say "Lasagne Verde,"  and you will be served lasagne verde.  Hello and welcome to Italy and Spain.  If you read English, you may like The Shadow Warriors.

A few weeks ago, I cleaned out my huge "research" file that I used to write The Shadow Warriors and a couple of other as yet unsold computer crime novels.   Computer research done in the nineties is history, old history,  as old today as when the Moors were in Spain.  I tossed it all, with much ruing and many regretful pangs.  Gone.  Done. Out.

Parador in Carmona

The Burning Man novel,  (unsold) is still technologically current, because I imagined technology that might be around the corner, bleeding edge technology.  The novel I will try to sell now, a woman in jeopardy book,  has a stolen laptop loaded with "LoJack for Laptops."   Nothing else very high tech.  The novel I am currently writing is set in Southern California in 1928.  No technology to speak of.  Talkies coming in, trams everywhere, Prohibition, the Black Bottom, cool old cars.  It's hard to put your head into another place and time, but once you get it, it won't change on you.

Computer crime will read its ugly head as long as there are computers.  How do you like them apples?