Over the past several months I have been working a booklet about my experiences and process for strategically sourcing electricity at my former employer. This was a slow march as I had some interruptions (a month long vacation in September being the biggest). The writing has finally been completed and now I have moved into the publisher role. Amazon.com has a service at createspace.com where authors, or other people, can print their book and then sell it through Amazon.com.
I thought the writing was a challenge until I started wading through the publishing process. So far I have made seven format variations trying to meet the requirements for the printed version to look like a real book. At the same time I wanted to offer an ebook version on Amazon.com. The formatting and requirements are very different for the Kindle world. Color and page layout can be maddening as I switch back and forth between the print and ebook. Going forward I am going to conquer the print version and the move to the ebook.
Eventually I will overcome these issues but in the meantime it can be frustrating. This might shed some light on why a publisher takes so long to print a book.
The next frontier will be marketing.