Most of the revising of my NaNoWriMo novel, "Storm Clouds" is done. Technical issues had caused a slight delay in my schedule. The revision process has changed the title to "Choices."
Uploading to Smashwords is scheduled for 05 April 2013. And this is where the technical difficulties started. I learned how to use the Paint.net program. I loaded the picture I wanted to use and got the title and my author name situated just so. Worked for a couple days to get the background perfect.
I had followed the guidelines for book covers. Pixel width and height a bit larger and all concerned could crop it with no fear. I had thought about getting really fancy and decided that simple is better until I can get the hang of manipulating the tools. And therein was the difficulty.
I was more concerned with the pixel size and making sure the picture was set so it didn't matter if it was cropped. Played around with different effects and made the final "Choices." Dutifully saved it as png file.
This morning I checked at the Smashwords site for uploading the cover and the updated story. Whoa.
#4 Cover Image under Apple Ibookstore Publishing Checklist: "...cannot be a grayscale image, i.e. black and white only." Well, my book cover was black and white. Or was it? Did I save it as something else when I was happily playing with the tools and discovering the different effects and such?
No doubt about it. I think I had inverted the colors and used one of the other effects to make get the visual effect of a different sort of being's vision. Black and white? 3D effect? Some decisions had to be made and now will be working on the cover again. Just to make sure I didn't use grayscale.
I tried to do as Scott Stringer recommended for naming layers in his ebook "Mastering Paint.NET 3.5.10" and realized on this one cover, I neglected to do so. Working on fixing that. The release of the book cover has been changed to 05 April 2013. Now that I think about it, when I showed my sis what I had done, the expression on her face was probably a good indication that it needed to be changed anyway.