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Although this was not the first time I edited a book, is was<\/em> my debut with self-publishing with KDP, the publishing section of Amazon. If there is one thing I learned through that experience: writing the book is the easy part. Editing, design and format were also not new to me. But getting it to Amazon with the required specifications is another story…<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have known the author, Hannah Campbell Zapletal, since the early 2000nds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I did two horsemanship clinics with her, following the principles of Monty Roberts. Roberts decrypted horse-communication for the greater public. A very interesting and passionate man, who is still active with these clinics to this day. I wanted to know about this particular way to train a young horse, so that I was better equipped to apply the principles to my own young horse at the time, Abby. Hannah and I have remained close friends ever since this first meeting. She now runs a horse-farm in Cummings, Georgia, in the USA. Read more about her here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/wildewoodfarm.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hannah grew up in Haiti, where her Canadian parents did missionary work. She moved to the USA when it was time for college. There was never a doubt in her mind about what her future would hold: horses. That was the keyword. But she still has a deep love in her heart for the suffering people of Haiti, once considered the Pearl of the Antilles, now a fourth world country due to the level of poverty, lack of medical resources, education, and per capita earnings. Whenever she can she will help put young Haitian girls through school; she believes in doing good in this world. So when I heard that my good friend had been scammed out of a lot of money during her efforts to publish her first book, I was so angry. I decided to lend a helping hand in realising her dream. In the past months we worked together intensely to edit and format her book, illustrate it with a series of unique photographs and upload it to Amazon. Begone scammers! We got the job done ourselves! [blowing raspberry]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hannah’s book is about people and animals, horses in particular. And about how the God of her understanding manifests itself in her life. The stories can be read independently, or following the days of the calendar. Because there is a story for each and every day, the book comes in at a serious weight of almost 1 kg for well over 500 pages… Working on a farm, with many different animals and more so: many different humans, gives Hannah daily access to unique situations. She describes them with a pen that will make you smile, cry and inspired. And she is not at all talked out. More books are on the way! I have been humbled to help her. It was such a fun adventure! And I have grown quite a few new brain cells along the way as well…<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, how easy is it to self-publish a book? Well… writing the content is the easy part, I mentioned that already. Maybe my expectations of the big Amazon company were too high… Maybe they are still working on the interface since KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing, formerly Digital Text Platform) became a part of the mammoth online storefront. Who knows… I found the upload interface to be a veritable camera obscura. It gave us no information at all when our initial uploads failed. We had to dive into a labyrinth of internet pages that all referred to each other in order to find the required information. I have never prayed so often and so hard for a successful end to a venture as with this book. It was pretty hard as well to find warm-bodied and knowledgable support-people who could help us interpret what it was we were doing wrong. Eventually we got there though and the book can now be ordered from Amazon in many countries. If people like it as much as I did (I was of course privileged to read it during the editing process…), this book will soon find its way to many enthusiastic readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n En route to the final successful publishing, we researched many different platforms to format the book. Vellum, Affinity and a score of others. All seemed to be aimed at writers of fiction with a clear distinction between chapters. And all seemed to be in love with as much white space as possible. It makes all books look the same. It just did not fit the bill. In the end, we opted for InDesign. A trusted Adobe product that is the industry standard for preparing printed and online products. It gave me the opportunity to learn to use it, and Hannah the chance to get her book formatted. I used to be familiar with QuarkXpress, but although it still exists, is it no longer considered the best. True to form for all Adobe products, InDesign does have quite a steep learning curve and there is still much to learn, but at least I understand the basics and how to apply them. So… if you need my assistance as an editor or formatter of books: email me! Maybe I can help you realise your dreams as well!<\/p>\n\n\n\n A couple of ‘bewares’ before I let you go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trust only yourself. Even when friends are plugging the tools they used, do not invest in them right away. See if there is a trial period free of cost and check to see if the recommended tool matches with what you need, want and are skilled enough to work with. If the app does not work for you, drop it and continue searching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then: there are many, many players in the self-publishing world and a lot of them are scammers. Beware of that if you are interested in taking this road for your first book. How do you recognise them? Well, they all come at you with perfect bedside manners. They will flatter you and make promises. And you may be so eager that you feel yourself falling for it. Remember: if a company is legit, they will not mind that you do your due diligence. Scammers do mind. When you are on to them, they either go silent or get angry and accusatory. They will ask for your ideas for a cover and will produce an acceptable cover, to make you hungry to have your book done by them. On closer inspection, these ‘acceptable’ covers will often be AI-generated and it will be done badly, with strange artifacts in the imagery or badly done blurring. But of course, at first glance it will look like a real book cover. Your dream coming alive! But it means nothing. A cover can be created in seconds using AI and other tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A reputable company will also not ask for you to send them your complete book right away until there is a formal contract with proper conditions and parameters. Books are stolen constantly that way. You can offer a sample chapter, an outline of the plot, if they want to work on a design proposal. When it comes to editing and proofing, send material per chapter in the beginning, rather than the whole book. And see how accurate and prompt their feedback is. Do not automatically trust them. Research their reviews on Trustpilot. Ask for references. Which books have they successfully helped produce? See if you can find those books on Amazon or in store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If their address seems strange, check it on Streetview. Or send someone over to see if there really is a company with that name at a given address. Another good test is to invite them to a Zoom meeting. Impromptu is better than planned. See if they will have their cameras turned on. And where they are sitting. If someone does not show their face, be aware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does this seem over the top to you? It may be. But it can save you thousands of dollars, anxiety and disappointment. Just saying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" April 22, 2026 Usually, the time after an art show is pretty quiet. But not for me. It has not been quiet for months, but in a way that, albeit artistic, had nothing to do with my paint brushes. Instead I helped one of my best friends self-publish her very first book! You can find it on Amazon\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2671],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artists-blog"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Nicky","author_link":"https:\/\/www.iamnow.today\/?author=1"},"featured_img":null,"coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Artist's Blog<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Artist's Blog<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 11 hours ago","modified":"Updated 11 hours ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on ","modified":"Updated on "},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on ","modified":"Updated on "},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iamnow.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iamnow.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iamnow.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iamnow.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iamnow.today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20652"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.iamnow.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20671,"href":"https:\/\/www.iamnow.today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20652\/revisions\/20671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iamnow.today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iamnow.today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iamnow.today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}About the author<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.iamnow.today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Hannah_BW-806x1024.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nScammers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Daily inspiration<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Camera Obscura<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
InDesign<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Beware<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Scammers also often ask you for substantial payments before services have actually been rendered. They are not interested in your book, all they want is your money. And they bow out after payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n