I am so technologically inept that it's sometimes quite pathetic. I'm on Facebook, Twitter, I can email people, I can upload and download and save a manuscript, but that's all folks! When google blogger changed their format I almost had a heart attack. It took me forever to figure out how to upload a book cover on my own blog! I still take longer than the average dunderhead to get it all put together. Look at that cover on OGG for instance. I've had four releases since A Highlander in LA and even with Lisabet's instruction I can't change it - I can't I tell you!! (Cue in hysterical voice over). Told you - pathetic.
Now, I am aware of just how important the internet has been since I started writing. without it, I'm sure the sales of my ebooks wouldn't register anything like the numbers I've enjoyed over the years, but honestly? I'd much rather see the printed versions on bookstore shelves, stand back and smugly think - Yeah, I did that. Of course, with the ever diminishing number of bookstores these days, that probably isn't the way to go anymore.
No it's definitely the age of cyber sales, and I only wish I was more with it and could fully embrace the technology required to do so. I do have a Nook for insta reading - I can even use it to send an email or two, but it's full potential is still lost on me. When I hear the youngsters I work with talking about the apps they've uploaded and the wondrous things they can do with them, I bury my head in the sand and break out in a cold sweat of embarrassment. Ditto when they start talking about the electronic role playing games they are so involved in. I have never played a video game...ever. I love the TV series, Big Bang Theory, but I have to admit if I didn't work in a bookstore I wouldn't have a clue about Halo or WarHammer or Dungeons and Dragons.
I think the root of the problem may be that I just don't trust the technology required to power my humble pc still equipped with Windows Vista. When I was bumped from Windows XP to Vista that too was almost the cause of a heart attack, but that's another story. As Lisabet mentioned there are just so many nasty things 'out there' ready to strike, rip the manuscript I've been working so steadfastly on for weeks from the screen and send it soaring into cyberspace, seemingly lost forever until I call the one or two geek friends I actually have who will painstakingly guide me through the steps to retrieve my precious work. Me, shaking with fear all the way. Back up? What's that? Oh yeah, those little gadgets you stick in a port and save your work to. Took me forever to figure that one out too.
I know you'll all be sitting there reading this and shaking your heads and thinking...pathetic. Well, I said it first...so there. Oh, that reminds me, need to back up the last two chapters I wrote. Now where did I put that thingy...
Of course I should have ended with - now I'm going to read Lisabet's Naughty Bits and have it all explained to me by a pro. So that's what I'm going to do!
ReplyDeleteUh oh. Now you've reminded me that I haven't yet steeled myself to try to replace my current book cover here with my latest, which came out last June. I got it onto my own blogger blog, and it looks okay, but I think they have to be a different size here. I don't even know how to tell what size a jpg is, never mind how to make it different, or trade it for a new one. I know I can figure it out if I just focus, but I've been putting it off.
ReplyDeleteSure enough, my new Mac has tools for sizing right with pictures themselves when you open them, so I've got mine adjusted to the same (rather elongated) size as the one on the page here. Who knows, maybe I'll work on deleting the one here and inserting the newer one, but not until later. There's just so much technological triumph my little brain can handle all at once.
ReplyDeleteJP, you've stolen my entry! :>) Bet I'm the bigger sap when it comes to these kind of things. Lucky I have my 'tech girl' in Momma X.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad we're all so tech-retarded - well nearly all...
ReplyDeleteI think it's because we're "word-people", as opposed to "tech-people". Our specialty is studying human nature and re-creating it with words that create vibrant people who have never, and will never live outside of the brains of the writer and the readers. Our brains create worlds within, software, if you will, not hardware.
ReplyDeleteSince it seems we're all similar, it's good that some of us managed to snag a mate who is more comfortable with tech-y stuff. Though that does lead to incidents where, for example, we were watching the movie "Warm Bodies", and I yelled out with great excitement after the balcony scene, "Honey! The male zombie can only remember that his name used to start with an "R", and the living human female's name is Julie! They're doing a recreation of Romeo and Juliet!" I turned to him triumphantly, smiling, as he groaned, "Do you have to analyze everything? You ruin things by doing that! Just enjoy the movie, for once!"
I guess that's the price you pay when you have a words-creator and a hardware creator living together.
JP, I sympathize. Re backing things up, I once had the smart idea of backing up everything in my "Documents" onto floppy disks -- and then they became zombie-like when they became obsolete (if that's the right term - they no longer worked). Ack! I can't keep up. Tech support at the university where I teach helped me to retrieve some files. (They are a very patient team of young men - I dunno why they all seem to be male.) I also have a fairly tech-savvy mate, even though she is largely self-taught. I'm very lucky to have help at hand, including Lisabet's erotogeek manual.
ReplyDeleteIf any of you want help with your covers, just ask...! I was actually going to send you a reminder, JP, because I KNOW you've got more recent releases...!
ReplyDeleteFor real, Lisabet? I've got a free read at Smashwords that has a cover my daughter designed for me when she was in middle school. I've asked her to help me design a new one, but she's a junior in college, works, has memberships in every honors group at her college, etc. I have NO idea how to even begin. Could you send me an email so we can talk?
ReplyDeletefiona.mcgier@gmail.com