The novella update: Despite recovering from oral surgery, I was able to format and upload I Will be Waiting for You at the End of the Story on three platforms: Smashwords, Amazon Kindle and Draft2Digital. Or maybe it was because of it–I was on painkillers, at home with some unexpected free time, so I grabbed this opportunity to do the last step in self-publishing.

Once again, it was maddening at times to create a proper Word document for Smashoword, but I was successful in my first attempt to upload the book. I like Smash, the final product looks sleek and elegant. Amazon KDP was easy up until the very end, when Kindle Create wouldn’t let me export the manuscript. I spent several hours looking for the solution, but I found it. D2D – well, a piece of cake at first glance, a pain in the rear immediately after that. The templates are so unappealing that I could only pick between tasteless and horrendous 🤪. I chose kitschy. On the other hand, their software does many things for you and D2D provide wide distribution, so I don’t mind having my books on their platform.

After some deliberation (or perhaps at some point I waited too long for the next round of painkillers and I was a bit edgy), I decided not to put up this book for free on Smash. I set it for US $1.99, and I can always send free copies to my friends. Smashwords will soon have their annual Christmas sale; it makes sense to wait until then to offer them free of charge.

Now that I used my lovely cover for my last post, I don’t have anything new and I have to use it again. On the other hand, I baked a lot the last week, so I’m including the image of a loaf bread I did on Saturday, to make this post a bit more visually interesting. It could be the best bread I’ve ever made.

From me to (some of) you – a Christmas gift: On a very different note, I have small presents for some of you who follow my blog – a review of your books. It’s going to be four posts in total, involving three bloggers and a friend of mine. I read three of those four books and the reviews are ready. I wrote them all in one day. (I’m still on sick leave and on painkillers). I have one more book to read and review but it’s a novella, and it wouldn’t take long.

I would’ve written those reviews anyway, but it’s a holiday season and this seems fitting. I have very few followers and this my way to thank them for sticking with me, for encouraging me, for reading my posts and leaving comments.

The first Christmas review is scheduled for Thursday, December 8th. Stay tuned!

I’ll wrap it up with a few of my photos from the last Christmas.