Here is the gist of the letter, which had to do with the steps to publish a book: You write a proposal, which gets rejected by every literary agent you contact. So, you start a website and try to generate interest on your own. Eventually, an agent notices you, but publishers still aren't willing to take a risk until your national profile is elevated. You hire a publicist to help you with this, and finally secure a small--small--advance from a publisher. And then you spend all of the advance promoting your book anyway, because you're still too big a risk for the publisher to do it.

And that's for a nonfiction book, which is actually easier to publish than fiction. And when I say easier, I really mean less hard and not easy at all.

For some reason, though, we keep trying. I don't know why. Although I don't think new rejections or roadblocks actually hurt any less, I spend less time thinking about it each time; I bounce back faster. I suppose in the long term it will make me a better person. So if rejection is a lemon, I reckon that stronger personal armor is the resulting lemonade.

Doesn't make it any easier to swallow, though. Not really. It's still bitter as hell and makes my eyes all squinty.

The proof for the print-on-demand version of On the Way to Someplace Else arrived today. It's great. It will be ready on amazon.com in about five days.

But--it's available right now on CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/3778390

I've had a little joke here about balloons and streamers. This is the mesage you get when you've completed set-up on a new title using CreateSpace:

Nice!

Upload the document, click through all the pages. Find something that got lost in translation between Word and CreateSpace. Go back and fix it. Upload again. Discover that the recent "fix" screwed up something else 50 pages later. Go back and fix it. Upload again. Pages are good, but now the headers don't work.

I cannot tell you how many hours it has taken me to get one, simple book ready for digital printing.

But, it is ready at last. I have submitted all my files to CreateSpace, including a cover that I created myself (oh, boy). I should be able to order a proof in a couple of days, and if it looks good, perhaps we will be ready for launch by next week. In the meantime, I will worry that my bleed was off on the cover and that I'll have to do that all over again, too. Ugh.

Actually, I have come full circle. I hope that doesn't mean anything significant.

The latest? Page creep. I have downloaded a template from CreateSpace and used it to set up my book in a 6x9 trim size. I review my Word document to make sure the formatting and pagination are correct, and then I upload it to CreateSpace. After conversion, I review what will be the file used to generate printed books. And the pagination is off.

A chapter whose final, two paragraphs appear on page 144 in my Word document pushes itself onto page 145 in CreateSpace. This means the next chapter begins on page 146.

Obviously, I cannot have this.

Oh, it's not obvious? Permit me to explain. In my world, chapters must all start on odd-numbered pages.

Aislinn suggests I need to let it go. This would be the same Aislinn who will rip up a perfectly good drawing if she is unsatisfied with the third eyelash on the left eye. Uh-huh. Let it go, indeed.

So, back to the user forum I will go. It's not easy being me.

Obviously, I am going to complain about something. Something that is a wonderful service that will make my life better. Something that will allow me to publish my books in the privacy of my own mind. I get it. But I'm going to complain anyway.

A few weeks back, you may recall that I was beating my head against the wall because Nook's e-publishing utility was vomiting up an error message that was completely inaccurate.

Today, the villain in my personal narrative is Amazon's print-on-demand service, CreateSpace. It keeps telling me that my cover image is not 300 DPI. But it is. It is 300 DPI. I may not know a lot about graphics, or what's really in peanut butter, or the infield fly rule; but I do know how to do one thing very well. And that is READ.

So I know my image is 300 DPI. I know it because that is what the appropriate field in the dialog box for the image properties indicates at every turn. And don't think you can trip me up by talking about PPI versus DPI, because I'm good with that, too. The problem is not with me. The problem is with CreateSpace.

I checked the user forum for CreateSpace, and the consensus is that everyone gets told their resolution is too low. The cynic in me suspects this is done in the hopes that people will give up and pay for someone at Amazon to design a cover.

But not me. Take that, you smug little code-crankers.

Evidently people who read Erin K. Rice are concerned with the global economy and culture. Who knew?

The question now is...do my books show up as recommendations for these titles? That would be ever-so cool.

We all are. That's kind of the point. And I think the reason I wanted to write about it is that we never know when we're on that journey. We don't know when it started or when it ends, usually.

Sometimes it's pretty apparent--a big event that forces a change. But most often, I believe we are unaware of the decision we make to set off on the journey. I think that's because, as humans, we tend to roll with the events in our lives without necessarily realizing that they have shifted our course.

Maybe as we get older we can recognize these "life-vectoring events," as my father-in-law calls them. And maybe once we learn to recognize them, we are eventually able to take thoughtful instead of reactive action.

But I think it's harder than it seems, on paper.

I am of course referring to the other Gutenberg. The one who invented moveable type. Which has now been largely dislodged by digital printing. And thus, the crux of today's message.

I have found a new source for print-on-demand (POD) publishing and will release a POD version of On the Way to Someplace Else forthwith. Well, as forthwith-ly as I can, once I overcome the usual obstacles of interior formatting and cover art.

But this is so much better than my last go-round! No need to calculate spine width; no need to know exactly how many pages I will have. It's cheaper, too.

Watch this space, then. I will have an update soon.

The Fisher Effect
A Novel by Erin K. Rice

Bank auditor Jordan Clarey believes her flirtation with enigmatic currency trader Luke Fisher is a harmless indulgence. But just as the stakes of their relationship are raised, Luke leaves for a business trip and severs all communication with her. Puzzled and disappointed, Jordan immerses herself in work and soon becomes entangled, along with Luke, in a plot to manipulate the international currency markets. At the root of it all is a scandal that would upend the global economy—and the United States government—if the true source were ever revealed. Spanning 10 days and the entire globe, The Fisher Effect spins a tale of international intrigue, dangerous romance and government conspiracies.

Oh. Sorry. Funny thing is, I don't even like Limp Bizkit. Their guitarist scares the living hell out of me. On second thought, he might play bass. I'd look it up, but Wikipedia is down and the band's website is awful. Oh, no! It's happening, just like they said it would!

Anyhoo....

On the Way to Someplace Else is now officially available on Nook.

Someone asked me if I'm allowed to have it on both Kindle and Nook. I said I didn't really care. I'm a rebel that way. If I sell enough copies on either site to cause a problem, I will consider it one worth having.*

On that subject, book sales have jumped by an astonishing eight percent! I am ever so grateful.

* But seriously, I don't think it's an issue. What Happened on Smith Street has always been available from multiple retailers.