After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, among other biblical challenges, I was finally able to get cover art for Fire Always Burns Uphill onto the Nook website.
The novel is available for the low, low price of $4.99, through these e-reader outlets:
Get your copy while supplies last! After all, there are only so many electrons in the universe.
Back to the cover art, though.
All I wanted to do was add a simple JPEG file to the Barnes & Noble page:
BN.com has uploading restrictions, but they’re nothing outrageous. If you’ve ever uploaded a pic for use in a forum, you know that the photo can’t be too large, and it has to have to be a certain size.
The problem, I hate to say, was that my MacBook and my iMac — machines that were supposedly built for photo/graphic processing — do not have native photo editing software. I mean, Jeez, Louise, if you shell out that kind of cash for a freakin’ computer, you’d think you could edit a damn picture, dontcha?
I couldn’t even find a tool on the Mac that would measure the number of pixels in the image! How whacky is that?
So I downloaded the free photo editing software called GIMP. It downloads quickly. And it’s about as user-friendly as trying to fly a 747 while doing your income taxes on April 14.
So, I had to resurrect an old XP machine and jump through the 2,761 hoops that are required any time you use a Windows computer that has been turned off for, oh, say, 20 minutes.
The end-result was 3-friggin’ hours of frustration and one teeny, tiny picture of my book cover.
I wonder if anybody is ever going to build a home computer that actually works?
Please buy my book … I need an inflated sense of self-esteem tonight :)