My Word file (yes, it’s still a Word file) has been fully formatted for a couple weeks now. But I left something off when I finished modifying it, and now it’s time to go back.

After hours spent changing styles and fixing the last few errors, I made a placeholder for two vital pieces of the eBook: the front and back matter. I couldn’t finalize either yet, since doing so required more than just typing a few words. The front matter consists of the title, author name, copyright information, etc. Yes, I suppose I did have all of that at the time. But what I was missing was a logo. And a series name. Oops.

Having finalized the cover, I next tasked my friend with a logo. Or, more accurately, she tasked me with finding a font which she would help turn into my logo. Several thousand free fonts later, I found the one that she concurred with, and off we went. She cleaned it up, made it look pretty in black and white, and then affixed it to the cover. Done. But not really. My name had to go on the cover as well. She recommended sticking with the same font, but there was just one problem: the D and M in this font looked like garbage. Short on time, she suggested going with lowercase letters. Bam, it worked. Though, if you disapprove with lower cased names, even for style, you’re going to frown at the cover.

However, in the front matter, my name is capitalized. And I inserted the logo as well. Hopefully it translates well on the Kindle. I’ll find out soon enough. Below that is the series name, which I now have. Yay. And then the obligatory copyright information, which links to my website as well as my friend’s website. Front matter complete!

In the back, there was really only one thing I was going to put: a link to my mailing list. Trouble was, I hadn’t created one yet. This was a longer process then I had anticipated. The gist is, I had to create a free email address with Zoho that used my domain name and then edit my web settings appropriately so that it worked. Once I figured that out, I went to MailChimp to create a free mailing list which would use said email address. Then I had to set up the list, make the page to sign up for the list, etc. Hope I haven’t bored you.

Once all that was done, I had the link I needed. I added a few words to the back of my ebook as well as the link to sign up for the mailing list, and then, I was finished. And it’s all ready for uploading. Wow, this is going to happen. A soft launch is imminent, but the real launch is coming July 1, 2016. Look for more this weekend.