Changes In Self Publishing
I’m having quite a challenging time with getting the second edition of Inverse in print form. (I got the digital book published on D2D.) The problems I have run into were not an issue a year ago when I published other books. I find it odd that these platforms would intentionally make it harder for authors to publish their books.
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I first tried to put it on Amazon KDP which is what I did last time. But the requirements changed. Print Cover Templates on KDP are now set at 600 dpi rather than 300. There is no easy or affordable way to convert a JPG cover design into a PDF, which is all they accept. Canva will do it for a 300 dpi design. (I have Canva so that would be free). For a 6X9 cover, the measurement would be 4037 px. by 2775 px at 300 DPI. But for the 600 DPI file, it would be 8075 by 5550. That is a huge difference in size! (and bigger than Canva will accept).
A year ago, when I published with KDP they only required a 300 DPI file, and the cover looked perfect. So, why have they made such a drastic change??? Shouldn’t it be the author’s choice? So KDP is out. And this change will affect many self publishing authors.
I did publish my novella Jojote with Draft to Digital as well as taking part in an anthology where two of my short stories were printed. (Coffee & Dreams). So I thought I would publish Inverse, edition 2, there. But now I ran into a different problem. I chose to upload my own manuscript PDF, not realizing that would mean I could not choose a 6X9 trim size. My book is designed for 6X9, and now the process is stuck. For some reason they prefer you to convert your e-book file for print. If you don’t they block you from using any trim size other than a 5X8 format. So when I realized why they limited my choices, I tried to start over. Closed everything down, shut off the computer hoping that would clear the cache but when I reopened D2D the draft was saved. It won’t reset. I have written their “Contact Us” help link 4 times with no response. Crickets. Anyone have advice for me?
