Kindle Imps

Yesterday I finished the edit and final proofread of my YA novel. Ariel jumped on it and said, “Let’s get the upload to Amazon started.” I tried not to panic and mumbled, “Sure.”

So she translated the book through various permutations. Everything was going so well (not my usual experience with anything computer related). We set up the financials. (You can have Amazon send you a check or they can direct deposit it. And they sell in the UK and Germany and you can select to have it changed into dollars instead of pounds or euros. Plus, they worry about adding the VAT taxes. Phew!) Then came the final file uploads. And the imps got busy.

First, we found blank pages in the novel text. Why? Who knows? We played with the text and they disappeared. We had to put the manuscript through the various permutations again. Then we tried to upload the cover art. Even though everything was perfectly formatted, it came out blurry. I called in the “big guns”—the professional. She tried loading the cover art—it came out in black and white. Which made no sense at all. How is that even possible? (I get that on Kindle the cover art will be black and white, but the Amazon site uses full color.)

We decided to go with the early blurry upload, hoping that it would turn out not fuzzy when it pubbed. So we went to the next step—the final preview. And a new weird formatting issue popped up. So we went back to the original document fixed the formatting issue and re-checked the whole document for the same error. Then, we re-processed and uploaded the book again.

And after it was finished, I panicked and realized that I’d forgotten someone from the acknowledgements. So once the book is accessible, I have to try and fix it.

At any rate, check back on Friday, hopefully the imps will be working with me and I’ll have an exciting announcement. In the meantime, I’m being to study the Imp-ish language (If you can’t beat them, join them.) Especially since my microwave is now behaving oddly. It shuts down for no reason and starts up for no reason. And it’s not an electrical short. Watch out—the imps are going to take over the world.