Putting it in writing...

Sometimes one wonders about publishers... we are, after all, in the business of words and their ability to get information across.

I just went to upload a cover graphic to the FTP server of a certain huge bookselling business.

Instead of the usually vacant upload folder there were a mass of files. And not one of them followed the instructions set out on the web site of that certain huge bookselling business.

The instructions are actually quite simple: Make the file 500 pixels in the largest direction, name the file with the ISBN and use a .jpg or .tif extension as appropriate. They even give some examples, such as 1254545332.jpg

Among this sample were ones with spaces in the name, spaces at the end of the name, the letters ISBN in front, the word "book" in front, the words "Book ISBN" in front and even a thumbnail database file.

I could also see some file sizes and a couple could not possibly be 500 pixel high files (unless maybe the book cover is one pixel wide) or maybe it is at the lowest possible quality setting. No, wait a minute, one of those tiny files was a TIF.

Hopefully the people responsible will not post on this list in a few weeks' time: "I sent my cover to ... that certain huge bookselling business ... and it hasn't appeared."

Or asking "why does my cover look so bad?"

And some person at that certain huge bookselling business will be wondering about the IQ of small publishers...