Vellum Software

This post could be described as an ode to Vellum software. It is used to format books and move them instantly into any of the many available formats for publishing, in paper or digital format. Oh my goodness, what a gift!!! To those of you who designed it and made it available to authors, proofreaders and editors, deepest thanks!

Vellum is said to be very easy to use. That is an understatement. The choices there for font, format, etc. are all elegant and limited. One points and clicks, and there it happens in the blink of an eye.

Vellum is said to be expensive. I don’t think so, especially as I went through a long corridor in Hades formatting my last books (with errors) for digital and then paperback formats. That was the very worst aspect of self-publishing and I am willing to be that many authors similarly situated would say the same. Vellum, which is not aware that I am writing this and most definitely not paying me to do so, offers two packages for sale. One is more expensive than the other, and covers both paper and digital formats. There is none of that annual subscription nonsense that I dislike. You buy it and it’s yours. And away you go!

One last note: The author or editor or proofreader can make corrections in Vellum, i.e. it is not necessary to return to Word or Pages or wherever the manuscript was created. I love that. And yes, it is true that this software operates on a Macintosh computer only and not on others and not on mobile devices. Fine by me!

Website

While my new novel is in the capable hands of my proofreader, I am working on the technical aspects of self-publishing. This post is about identity, my own. Heretofore, I have given each book its own presence on the internet. The number of my books has reached the point where the website has to be my own, LindaFerreri.com. I cannot say that this pleases me because I have always wanted the light to shine on my work, not on me. When I give a lecture, I ask the control booth people to be sure to record the lecture and its images, not me. That plan simply breaks down when it turns out that people look for my books using my name. So I have to make that work now.

My website, this one, ACloudofFraud.com is going to move to LindaFerreri.com where my new novel will get top billing, a it should. I hope I can move this blog smoothly, right over to the new web site, but I can’t promise that. All of these doings involve a learning curve for me, one that I don’t dislike. It’s an adventure and I can’t promise a terrific outcome.

The new novel, by the way, pleases me. Claire Bliss and Baldo are there, waiting for my readers. I hope that they and their adventures delight and distract, as they are meant to do.