On Books: My Favorite Memes 1

On my Facebook timeline, my favorite memes become difficult or impossible to find, sometimes in a matter of hours. (Those pesky algorithms.) Blogging them seems to be the best way to preserve them. Here is the first of what I expect will be many collections of book- and writing-related images.

 

A Writer Learns How to Combine JPG Images and Create PDFs

      This week I’ve learned a new skill. I found a way to pull together the covers of my three fantasy novels into a single image for posting on Facebook and other social media.

      For the techy-minded among you, creating a book-cover-collage JPG would be easy, I’m sure. But I had to logic through the steps, using the software that was available to me: much of it old, or free. These are the tools I used:

            WordPerfect 9.0 (copyright 1996–1999 Corel Corporation)

            PrimoPDF 5.1 (copyright 1997–2009 by Nitro PDF)

            Neevia Document Converter (copyright 1999–2012 by Neevia)

            ZoomBrowser EX 5.0 (copyright 1996–2004 by Canon Inc.)

      I’ve never learned to manipulate images in Microsoft Word, but in WordPerfect it’s easy. To make my Facebook author page banner (what Facebook calls a “cover”), I began with a beautiful sunset-on-the-beach photo, a JPG that I borrowed from a Facebook friend. After opening the beach photo in WordPerfect, I opened each cover image for the WATERSPELL trilogy. WordPerfect let me position each book cover, side by side on top of the beach photo, all three books shifted slightly to the right to leave a space for my Facebook profile picture or icon.

      The resulting four-element image (three book covers against background photo), I saved as a WordPerfect document (.wpd). Then I “printed” it, choosing PrimoPDF as the “printer” in place of the laser or inkjet printer that I use for most of my print-outs. “Printing” the WordPerfect document with PrimoPDF had the effect of creating a PDF file.

      Next step: I used the Neevia Document Converter online to convert the PDF file to a JPG.

      After downloading the finished JPG, I used ZoomBrowser EX 5.0 (software that came with the Canon digital camera I got for Christmas 2005) to crop the image to the proper dimensions for a Facebook banner or cover: 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels high. The JPG image I was working from was more than twice the size that I needed for my Facebook banner, so I cropped the JPG to roughly 1750 x 650 pixels, knowing that Facebook would shrink it as needed to fit the space they allow for the “cover photo.”

      From there, it was simply a matter of uploading my newly made three-book banner to use as my Facebook page’s cover photo. I think it turned out great. And I did it all with old software that I’d owned for years, augmented by free software I found online. Not a penny was spent out of pocket.

      You techy types may howl with laughter. But as a writer who doesn’t generally work with images, I am proud of myself for figuring out a way to combine the three book covers of my WATERSPELL trilogy into a single, correctly proportioned image to use on Facebook and elsewhere. Digital publishing is teaching me (forcing me to acquire) many new computer skills. I love it. ☺

Facebook: Personal Profile or Author Page?

Not a week ago, I was saying I didn’t want to join Facebook. But a friend who’s much more of a Luddite than I am said she thought I’d enjoy it. And then I read a good article in Slate.com by Farhad Manjoo: “Everyone else is on Facebook. Why aren’t you?”

Manjoo covers all my objections: that it’s just something else to distract a human from the business of real life; that it keeps people at the computer when we already spend WAY too much time at the computer; that a writer updating her Facebook page is a writer who's not writing; that Facebook “friends” don’t substitute for the real thing; that it’s a gross invasion of privacy; etc. etc.

I won’t repeat all the points Manjoo makes in rebuttal. I’ll just give you the link again so you can read the article for yourself.

I TOOK THE FACEBOOK PLUNGE

Deborah J. Lightfoot

WATERSPELL

Manjoo convinced me: Today I joined Facebook. I did it in a small way, with an “Author Page” instead of a personal profile.

From what I think I know about it all, an Author Page seems like it’ll be less work than a personal profile. Whatever I post to my Author Page will be wholly public—viewable by everyone, the same as my blog.

Which means I won’t have to keep track of various groups. I’ve heard that some Facebook users restrict their high school buddies to one group, their college friends to another, and their friends from work to yet another. Egads! I’m not that organized. I’d rather have one page with book-related content that’s viewable by everyone.

One friend from my childhood commented, a year or so ago, that she’d looked for me on Facebook but didn’t find me there. So then she Googled my name and found my website.

I suppose now I’ll be findable on Facebook. That’s sort of the point—I think.

It’s not like I was actively keeping my light under a bushel, pre-Facebook. I’ve had a website since 2000. Then I got another one through The Authors Guild. Then I set up a WATERSPELL-only site at The Authors Guild. Then I got a page at SCBWI, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. And of course there are pages devoted to my backlist books from my other life: The LH7 Ranch, Trail Fever, and A Century in the Works.

Now there are pages at Amazon and Barnes & Noble devoted to my new novels: WATERSPELL Book 1: The Warlock and WATERSPELL Book 2: The Wysard. And I’ve got a profile page at Smashwords.

I was pretty easily findable pre-Facebook. But now maybe I’ll be where people expect me to be. If Facebook serves a useful purpose, perhaps it is in the site’s ability to pull together a big chunk of the world’s population, all under one roof.