Tag Archives: Self-Publishing

A Space, a Space, My Kingdom for a … Wait a Minute.

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Here we are.  Eleven days to go before formal launch of Fatal Score. The last week or so has been hectic, as you can infer from the lack of a post for a couple of weeks.

The professional reviews are in … some very nice ones.  Several days ago, I excerpted them to the few lines that go on the back cover of the print book and in the e-book’s introduction.  Was ready to upload to the cover designer in Nigeria (ain’t the internet wonderful?) and noticed that in my haste, I’d left out a single space in one of the reviews.

The conclusory line in the Kirkus review is:  “A rousing launch to a thriller series that has potential regardless of which character takes the spotlight.”

Great. Add it to the others. Hurry.

I typed: “Arousing launch to a thriller series that has potential regardless of which character takes the spotlight.”

Hmmm.  Fifty shades of techno-thriller?  Maybe I should have left the mistake.

#%@## Amazon

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Okay, John.  Square breathing.  In-hold-out-hold.  Do it again.  Again.

Didn’t work.

Self, you promised you would not screed on your blog. (When used as a verb, screed  sounds a little like the inevitable effect of food poisoning, which seems appropriate, no?)

But Amazon is so #%@## annoying.

CreateSpace, Amazon’s print-book child, is going out of business.  I was directed to port Fatal Score from CreateSpace to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), where the e-book also resides. Earlier, when I ordered CreateSpace proofs, they came out looking like typical publishing house work product:  the word ‘proof’ on an inside page.

I completed the transfer to KDP and ordered several proof copies to give to a couple of writers who have said they will review for back cover quotes. The proofs arrived today with the annoying line ‘not for resale’ effacing my cover.

Memo to Amazon:  As much as your entrepreneurial imagining might conjure a book as similar to a single-serve packaged cupcake, it is not.  You sanctimoniously intone that the cover is perhaps the most important aspect of the book, presumably oblivious of the insult that delivers. Then you ruin the cover.  CreateSpace had the common sense to imitate a real publisher, but apparently you are much more concerned with establishing control of the distribution process than the success of the book.

No more proof copies from you.

There.  The spasm subsides.  Square breathing. In-Hold-Out-Hold.