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Hitch -
The example you cited – the Adobe editor's (the pro version's) inability to repaginate a fixed format file, Adobe's own format, after adding a page renders it instantly useless. Just as bad, simple operations like deleting and adding text, cutting and pasting you take for granted with any competent text editor I found so daunting with the Adobe editor I gave up on them. That a company as prominent as Adobe would offer such a user-hostile product and charge a fee for it I found astonishing.
As to the cover problem, I first tried to solve it by adding the cover jpeg to the original odt text file (one click does it) using Open Office, and converting the modified file to pdf. It worked, but I wasn't satisfied with the appearance, and finally arrived at the fix discussed elsewhere for the pdf file downloaded from D2D. That file, viewed on the SumatraPDF pdf viewer, was much the best from an appearance standpoint compared to the mob/epub versions viewed on either the Kindle Previewer or Adobe Digital Editions.
As you surmised, I went to all this trouble to offer my novella for free to members of Library Thing (of which there are about 2.5 million, according to the site), in return for a review of the piece. Every month, through its “early reviewers” feature, LT allows authors to offer as many as 30 free copies of their book to readers in return for a review. For established authors, reader requests far exceed the copies available, typically numbering in the hundreds. I offered 30 copies of my piece as part of LT's “May 2022 Batch,” and received 37 reader requests for copies, of which only 8 were granted by the site administrator for various reasons. To these readers I emailed my ebook in all three formats, as none of the requestors specified which format he or she preferred. Four of the reviewers responded with reviews, three favorable and one not so favorable. One of the favorable reviewers was kind enough to post the review on Amazon.
What effect the reviews will have on sales of the piece remains to be seen. They have been disappointing so far, and it may be that “psychic income” will be all that I ever receive from the effort (the connection I made with the reader who left the glowing review on Amazon, who “got” what I was attempting to do with the piece, made my day).
- Pierre Lawrence
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