Last year I published my story-poem about Emmy Elf with Kindle Direct Publishing, to see if I could (since it had images and suchlike in it ).

I also published it as a free e-book on Smashwords, to find out how the process worked. (I’m glad now I didn’t charge for it.)

I decided to update them this year and republish both on Amazon’s KDP. It would be a simple business. After all, the properly formatted Word files were in my folders, just needing tweaks… weren’t they?

Wrong!

Never expect last year’s image-heavy Word file to reopen as you left it.

Things move.

I’m sure it’s my fault much of the time. I type away wondering why nothing is happening on screen, only to find my cursor has been changing things on a different page. Maybe I don’t always find it.

Margins changed (how did that happen?), pictures moved, full-width images shrank from page edges, dropped caps distanced themselves from their words (I’ve abandoned those as more trouble than the effect is worth) and, horror of horrors, I found commas that shouldn’t be there.

I didn’t notice these issues all at once, of course. Three emails from KDP later, not to mention several uploads and previews, I finally published a file acceptable to KDP and to me.

The e-version I had published on Smashwords looked mean and fuzzy on my black-and-white Kindle. I know a little more now about resizing images but, again, it took several uploads and previews to get it right (and it still looks unhappy on my cheapo monochrome Kindle).

Getting to the point…

In the spirit of black Friday, the Kindle version of A Year Before Christmas is available FREE on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com until 3rd December.

Download, enjoy (I recommend you increase the font size from default) and I would be incredibly grateful if you could leave a review on Amazon.

If you like it, consider adding the paperback to your Amazon order when you need something to make up that magic amount that qualifies for free postage. (It’s a neat little paperback booklet with more pics than the e-book.)

A Year Before Christmas is available now from Amazon.co.uk at £3.97 and Amazon.com at $9.13.

The Kindle edition will be £0.99 or $1.28 after 3rd December.

Did the drop caps in this blog do anything for you?

Should I persist with them in my Word file?

What are your favourite Christmas stories?

(my grandchildren already know Emmie’s.)