Coming soon – Unbreak My Heart
After months and months and months of setbacks I’m finally making progress with publishing “Unbreak My Heart”.
About eight weeks ago I finished formatting the first 20 pages of my final manuscript. For the first time ever, I was able to start the process of uploading it onto KDP ready for publication. I wanted to do a “test run” with these 20 pages to ensure that trim sizes, margins, font size, and page numbers looked good before formatting the remaining 146 pages. Call me old-fashioned: however, I only wanted to do the formatting once, so this “test” was quite important.
Unfortunately, it’s not possible to preview the book until the “print ready” cover is uploaded. Foiled again!
Another slight delay incurred as I confirmed my final instructions with Steve Price, my graphic designer. He was incredibly quick in sending me the documents. After another couple of small changes, I was so excited to upload the document and press “Preview”.
Only to discover my margins didn’t look quite right when viewed as a book. My first, second, and THIRD attempt at uploading the amended manuscript was met with the ominous warning that “This service is not available at the moment. Please try again later.”
It took nearly a week before KDP, and my laptop, were “talking” again.
Hurray!
Oops, not so fast.
It was at this point that I realised MS Publisher was causing a problem with the formatting of various headings when viewed in KDP. So, back to the editing.
It took me three or four attempts before I realised what MIGHT be causing the error. Frustratingly my last upload to confirm my suspicions resulted in the reoccurrence of the ominous “This service . . .” warning.
So, I bit the bullet and checked all the headings on every single page of the 156-page manuscript, whilst not being 100% sure that it would resolve the problem. Well, I had to do SOMETHING because otherwise I would never make any progress.
Check and editing completely I crossed my fingers and attempted to upload the MS again. Success at the second attempt. Although I still couldn’t access the preview. This time KDP was complaining that I had made so many changes that I needed to re-confirm that AI had not be used in any part of the creation of the book. If KDP had seen the war I am waging against random AI adverts on Facebook at the moment, I think KDP would already know my opinion on AI. However, that’s a rant for another time.
Having confirm that I had indeed spurned all variations of the so-called help that AI is pushing, the remainder of the set up process was relatively easy. A last check that headings were readable rather than randomly created garbage, and I was ready to request my “Proof Copy”.
WOO HOO HOOOOOOO – this is finally happening.
Oops, not so fast. AGAIN!
I received my email confirmation from Amazon within a couple of hours. All I needed to do was follow the link and my proof copy would be waiting in my “basket” ready for confirmation.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy . . . or so you would think!
NOPE.
Amazon needed me to provide official Tax ID from Mexico due to the international delivery. In the four years of living in Mexico we’ve never been asked for this. Not to be bullied into giving up, I found my CURP number. Sadly, Amazon didn’t like that: the field formatting “mask” wouldn’t accept the letter/number combination of my number. I had more success with my RFC number.
I paid for my order and waited for email confirmation of delivery day. What I received instead was a message saying that my order had been cancelled, and I have been issued a refund. The reason? They wouldn’t deliver to Mexico. Probably because the postal service is so unreliable here.
That’s simple. I’ll request a new “proof”, and this time select a different delivery method. Amazon has successful delivered items using DHL or FedEx on numerous occasions, so no problem!
Except that wasn’t possible.
So, I went back a step in the whole process to ask for my “proof” to be printing in Mexico. That would solve the problem immediately. No such luck. Proofs can only be ordered from a handful of countries and Mexico wasn’t on the list.
Thinking outside the box, I contacted my wonderful friend, Brandi Lytle (from the brilliant Not So Mommy . . . blog) and asked if I could get the “proof” sent to her. I would then arrange for a courier to collect it and place it in my waiting arms. Brandi you are a superstar. AGAIN!
Attempt #526739127 failed on a number of different levels:
- I couldn’t remove my RFC details.
- Amazon refused to accept Brandi’s address as she had written it.
- They would only permit me to pay in pesos or USD.
A little bit of moving money around in WISE and I had enough USD to cover the cost. Thank you WISE, I don’t know what we would do without you!
I finally managed to get to the point of paying and THEY TOOK THE MONEY IN GBP.
Typical, yet we’re getting somewhere now!
I sent Brandi an update with Amazon’s estimated delivery information and then set about finding a courier. I wanted to make it was easy for Brandi as possible, so I focused on a “pickup” service. I’d used this a couple of times when I needed things to be sent from the UK and it had always “gone off” without a hitch.
Imagine my horror when I was quoted $120
Yes, you read that correctly ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY DOLLARS for collecting ONE A5 book in the USA and delivering it to me in Mexico.
This was a minimum cost, without paying extra for a faster service. Before contacting Brandi, I checked the cost of a courier from the UK. For the same “pickup” service it was going to be £27.53
I could have ordered FOUR individual proof copies in the UK and couriered them to me in Mexico in FOUR different packets and it would have cost me about $3 less than just ordering ONE copy from the USA. MADNESS!
When I contacted Brandi, she wasn’t surprised about the cost. She’s kindly agreed to taking my package to her local UPS store which will save me a bucket load of $$$.
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE:
I’ve just received an email from Brandi. UPS only offers an “Express Service” to Mexico which will cost me . . .
Drum roll please . . .
$100
I’m now working on plan #526739128
At this rate it would be cheaper for me to get a return flight to the USA, stay one night in an AirB&B, and then return to Mexico with my book in my hot little hand.
SORRY FOR THE DETOUR. . .
So, it’s going to be a little bit longer before I get to hold my book in my hands. Which gave me another dilemma. Do I delay publishing this update until I’ve received the book and can have a photo of me or share an update without a photo?
Brandi came to the rescue again and sent me a selfie of her with my proof copy. I’m unsure if her surprised/excited expression is because she knows she’s the first person within the CNBC community to hold the book, or if it’s delayed shock at the courier costs. Either way, it’s a brilliant photo.
In conclusion, even using ALL the fingers and toes available to me in the house (and with two humans and four dogs that quite a high number) I’ve lost track of how many spanners the universe has thrown into the works.
Which means, until I have my “proof” in my hands, spent time checking that everything is good, I’m not even going to start thinking about a new publication date. The way the universe is pissing around I simple won’t risk there being another delay.
As soon as I have a confirmed date, I will share it.
For the moment all I can confirm is that publication date is now closer than it has EVER been before.
PS:
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You’ll receive either one or two emails from me a month containing updates about “Unbreak My Heart” and the other CNBC related projects that are in the pipeline. There’ll also be an announcement when I relaunch my blog, hopefully this summer: however, now is not quite the right time. So, this post is more a “dipping my toe into blogging again” one-off, rather than the commencement of anything regular.