June 25th was a Tuesday and I was required to visit the college I work at, in order to attend a meeting there. My classes only began on 26th. I teach English, and English classes are required only for the first year students. The college was dedicated to applied sciences; therefore, there is no English major course at the college.
I still remembered from the previous day’s call from the college that the meeting started at 3 pm. I was required to reach there only at two in the afternoon. That was quite relaxing, since I always had a peculiar distaste towards the hurly-burly for being late. I woke up at eight in the morning, took a long time for morning chores, and sat down in front of my computer. (My home computer, which everyone in my house uses, I mean. I do not own one personally, yet).
The paperback printing of my book had already begun and Amazon had asked me to upload a file for its kindle version. I was happy. After three minutes, the Kindle Direct Publishing site showed that it might take a few more minutes for the conversion of the Word document into e-book format. I waited. A button turned and turned at the left side of the box, in which the above-mentioned message was showing.
Upload and conversion were successfully completed.
The next sign was telling me below the upload box that I can now see the preview. I could either use the online previewer in ‘Kindle Fire’ format, or download a brand new previewer into my computer. I already had a ‘Kindle for PC’ application in my computer. Therefore, I chose another link, which said, ‘download a preview’.
The Button turned, a blue book-like image blinked with a ‘.mobi’ extension, close to the bottom of the screen. I placed the cursor of the mouse on the blue book image and clicked the right button. From the list that popped up, I chose ‘Open.’ Another button went round and round above the cursor of the mouse. I waited to see it stop. Before the next three minutes, the boy, reading a book under a dark tree, appeared. It opened, and there it is.
It looked fine; a bright patch of colour, among all the other e-books--Treasure Island, Pride and Prejudice, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Wall of Colours!
God! My book was right there, in front of my eyes, just a double click away from opening.
Some people who have come across this page and confronted with this post might know the journey I had, the risks I took and the wonders it all opened to me. Those are people, who have been following my creative life, on and off line. I thank all of them.
For the new visitor, my word is this: hang on; you are about to experience a ride of tales of the wonderful, and the mundane.
Wall of Colours will be yours, on 1 July 2013.
I went to the meeting at the college that day, but I was not the same wannabe writer anymore. Something had changed, and the image of my book preview, in the kindle reader remained in my eyes.