I have learned much. I have learned that there are a boatload of different types of pdf files with esoteric standards involving sequences of mostly capital letters mixed with slashes dashes and numbers that may as well be in Aramaic, and only one of those pdf files will work. I also learned that a 10-year-old Adobe Acrobat program from the CS 5.5 Master Suite is woefully out-of-date, like, it’s not even supported any longer. Despite all that, I have finally uploaded the cover and interior file to Ingram Spark, and have arbitrarily chosen the above publication date, figuring it will give me enough time to produce my videos, set up a FB group, and write my post on adaptive thermogenesis. Maybe even enough time to make my epub and mobi e-book files.
Another thing I learned was that I need to buy both some Adobe stock, and Amazon. Adobe because it’s good, pervasive and industry-dominant; and Amazon because they take a generous cut of everything sold on the site, including the products of vanity publications, especially color publications. Publishing my color book to Amazon KDP simply was not an option in my mind as the minimum cover price was almost $25, and my royalty on that was $0.33. According to the calculator, the print cost was $14 (as I remember), and there was only one option to pick from and that option was “color.” For such a killer company I think they do a poor job in that department; however, it is specific to color, a B&W effort is much more palatable. For a space guy, Jeff Bezos seems really afraid of color for some reason.
I’m excited to see if my idea works. If not, I’ve got another 99 ISBNs to use.