Vacation day three: Into the Amazon

I had plans to shove my manuscript through Amazon’s machine today to see how it held up. I managed to do that, but not without some drama.

First, I had to bring the Mac into the modern era. It’s still all screwed up with my son’s passwords and not recognizing anyone but him now. I managed to get it to a point where it’s relatively functional.

Then there was the office drama. I nearly got called back to work today. Fortunately, it was something we could deal with over the phone, but it put me off my game for a while.

When it came down to it, I got my chance with Amazon. I had to put out an entry level blurb before it would let me advance to the screen I needed. That’s something I’ll have to address once I’m ready to publish.

Amazon found some spelling errors that kind of pissed me off. Why didn’t Apple flag these while I was writing the damned thing? These are mostly medical terms, so they didn’t jump out at me during my reviews. One involved a word that should have had a double-t, and I just missed it.

Several of my silly cartoons wound up in the wrong spots. My section breaks are also silly cartoons since I can’t find a font to insert a bass clef.

I contacted my formatter, and she’s a trooper. This is another reminder to start ahead of time if you have a target publication date. Many books it really doesn’t matter, but Lizzie and the hat always do better during the Halloween season. It will be here before I know it, and I still have promo posts to write.

I may have to send my formatter a gift card, or just PayPal her a tip or something.

No new words today, but that’s okay. Not all progress is word-count. I need to see if AutoCrit or something can find some of those spelling errors for me.

Task list: Promo posts, get my son’s footprint out of the Mac, fiddle with AutoCrit.