#%@## Amazon

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.

Author: John Rogers

I have thought of myself as a writer for most of my adult life. In 2011, I became a fiction writer full time. I studied creative writing as an English major in college. Then came family and career. I worked in finance and biotech and did a wonderful stint in Vienna. Now, I have the opportunity to use those experiences as the substrate for my stories. My first novel takes on the world of Big Data and the very timely issue of cyber war. The second uses the manipulation of financial derivatives as impetus for attempted murder during a trip from Vienna to Budapest on the Danube. I have taken writing instruction at the Cape Cod Writers Conference and from The Loft in Minneapolis. I am finding writers’ groups to be very helpful as concept editors, as well as practical advice from the published authors. I am in three such groups. I have taken writing instruction at the Cape Cod Writers Conference and from The Loft in Minneapolis. View all posts by John Rogers