What Could Go Wrong?
Terry Odell
As you read this, I’m probably prone on a Long Island beach attempting to take decent photos of nesting shorebirds. (I was going to say I was shooting birds, but that could be misinterpreted, especially in this group.) I’ll try to check in and respond to comments, but please don’t let my absence keep you from expressing yourself.
I normally keep my own blog, my Substack, and my TKZ posts separate, but given that I’ve been trying to prepare for the trip and deal with major rewrites on the current wip, I took the liberty of repeating myself here.
When I learned that it would be better to have my Triple-D Ranch Series published before my scheduled BookBub Featured Deal on July 9th, I set the wip aside while I created the ebook. No worries. I’ve done this many times before.
I had the manuscript put together and used Draft2Digital to create the epub. I downloaded it, and it looked fine, but wanting to make sure I had some time to make sure it was really ready, I scheduled it to release on July 1st, a few days in the future. I use Draft2Digital to get my books onto Apple because that used to be the only route unless you used a Mac. Being lazy, I never changed once Apple allowed PC users to upload directly.
Next, I figured I’d go to Barnes & Noble, which is one of the ‘easier’ places to upload a new book, because they don’t have territorial pricing, which is always a challenge for me. Before I’d gotten more than a couple of steps into the process, they asked, “Does your file include the cover?”
Dang. I’d added the individual covers for each title into the manuscript, but had totally neglected to include the one I’d created for the book.
Back to the manuscript, add the cover, then back to D2D to reupload the file. Checked to make sure no gremlins had crept in, and approved it for publication. Back to B&N, and finished jumping through their hoops. Checked the final review. How had I chosen my Mapleton Mysteries as the series this Triple-D Ranch book belonged in? Probably because I’d just adjusted the pricing on one of the Mapleton bundles, and that was where my brain remained. Edit. Reupload.
Kobo was straightforward enough, although they have a bunch of territorial pricing options, too.
Then, onto Amazon. By now, it should have been easy, right?
I got as far as uploading my manuscript file, which seemed to be taking much longer than usual to load. It finally did, I went through all the other steps, and downloaded the file to make sure their software hadn’t messed anything up.
What? Where was all the back matter I’d added through D2D’s options. My author’s note, all my other books, my teaser? I went back and looked. Somehow, I’d managed to upload my Word file, not the epub I’d created. So, once again, I upload the file, and this time, everything seems to be right. Amazon has territorial pricing, but not as many venues, so it didn’t take as long. But wait. I’d recently changed the pricing on a Mapleton bundle, and I was using those prices, not the ones based on the pricing for the Triple-D book. Go back to the Kobo pricing page, screenshot those prices and enter them at Amazon. Except … Amazon has price ceilings that are lower than Kobo’s for some of the territories, so in reality, most of my prices were already where they had to be.
I’m thinking all is well at last, and I still had a couple of days before the book goes live. But I need to add a page for the book on my website. I’ve done this before, too, so it shouldn’t take too long.
My web designer has things set up so if I create the page by cloning a previous book’s setup, I can just make the necessary switches. The cover and other metadata. All is going along swimmingly … until … I look at the home page and notice there’s something different about the cover for this one.
Check out the first cover from my cover reveal blog post. Then look at my book page. Can you tell what I did wrong?
So, back to Canva, make the changes, and get the website done. Almost. Turns out the cloning process only works properly if you clone a book from the same series. I hadn’t. I’d just used my most recent release, Danger Abroad, which is a Blackthorne title. So, the automatic populating of the page pulled the Blackthornes, not the Triple-Ds. Delete that file and start over, this time with a Triple-D title. Took a little longer because there was a section I wanted to be on the new book’s page that wasn’t on any of the other Triple-D titles, and I had to figure out how that worked by trial and error. (Because I wasn’t going to pay my web designer to change it unless I was totally out of my depth. Money, either incoming or outgoing, is a great motivator for me, and I did manage to figure out how to add that section.)
Only one more thing I had to do—change the cover everywhere—but I couldn’t do that until the book was live, because you’re not allowed to touch things when it’s that close to release.
So, a half day project ended up taking about three days, not counting the waiting for release so I could swap out the cover.
Anyone else have as many brain lapses on one project?
New! Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings
When breaking family ties is the only option.
Madison Westfield has information that could short-circuit her politician father’s campaign for governor. But he’s family. Although he was a father more in word than deed, she changes her identity and leaves the country rather than blow the whistle.
Blackthorne, Inc. taps Security and Investigations staffer, Logan Bolt, to track down Madison Westfield. When he finds her in the Faroe Islands, her story doesn’t match the one her father told Blackthorne. The investigation assignment quickly switches to personal protection for Madison.
Soon, they’re involved with a drug ring and a kidnapping attempt. Will working together put them in more danger? Can a budding relationship survive the dangers they encounter?
Like bang for your buck? I have a new Triple-D Ranch bundle. All four novels for one low price. One stop shopping here.
Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”
Ouch. It can be challenging when there’s a lot of moving parts, Terry. I’ve never had this many on one project, but I’ve certainly had problems with links, formatting, pricing, etc. I need to check and recheck, and sometimes, even when I do, an error still creeps in.
The solution of course is to do what you did, and stick with it.
Hope you have a wonderful day bird watching on the beach!
There’s a little free time factored in, mostly so we can work on our images and get some professional instruction. Capturing birds in flight is a whole ‘nother game.
That is my life. And why I like checklists. My biggie is the cover. Someone compiles the course catalog. I turn it into a flip book and post it. After I add the cover. Seven years and no one has noticed their copies don’t have covers.
I keep a running list of the places I’ve uploaded to, and as I mentioned, I’ve done it enough times to think I’ve got it down. This time, my brain apparently went on vacation before I did.
I’ll bet the people without covers didn’t know there was supposed to be one.
Oldest child has to edit the outgoing communications. Something the Marketing person hates. Of course, oldest child did need to remind Marketing Weenie this is a Jewish organization. We don’t use crosses as bullet points.
LOL. Smart move!
Thanks for the cautions, Terry. I’ve been wanting to do boxed sets for my thrillers. Nice to know some pitfalls to watch for.
Changing one small thing on a website changes everything down the line. Time consuming, boring, frustrating, but oh-so-necessary.
Enjoy your beach time!!! Look forward to more of your beautiful photos.
Thanks, Debbie, although schlepping a heavy (for me) camera with a bulky (for me) lens makes it less than what I’d consider “a day at the beach.”
I’ll share some pictures once I get home and process them. The ones that seem to have some promise, anyway. Nobody sees my first drafts of my manuscripts, and nobody needs to know how many images I trash. 🙂
It seems like every time I get in a hurry to do something, I make mistakes and it takes a lot longer than it should have. (That’s why I have a sign above my desk that reads “Festina Lente.”)
Have a great photo trip, Terry. Look forward to seeing those birds in flight.
Thanks, Kay. I’m at the stage in my photography where it’s hit or miss on moving subjects. I hope to hit a few. These birds aren’t filing flight plans.
I strongly suspect I haven’t been able to get a Bookbub deal BECAUSE I am not wide, and they like to have their offerings be wide (they say it’s because their customers want that – probably true – but is it numerically worthwhile?).
But I’m not wide precisely because of the effort it takes to BE wide – I simply can’t come up with that kind of energy, nor do all those things in a coordinated effort at many sites.
For chronically ill authors, Amazon is a lifesaver. Everything in one place, and it all works together.
BTW, I’ve given up on the BB idea – do I really want to advertise with people who don’t want my money? This is the SUBTLE kind of discrimination disabled people face – not only are the playing fields nowhere near level, but they don’t have anyone on staff to help, and the fields are literally covered with steps without ramps around them.
Yes, BookBub prefers wide, but it’s not a total deal breaker. Those spots are just really, really, really hard to get. I don’t do Amazon or FB ads, and rarely do BB ads, primarily because I don’t lower my prices. I have 5 ‘first in series free’ books, and that’s my price break to readers. I don’t want to train them to wait because the price will go down eventually.
I’ve been wide from the beginning, because I want to reach a wide audience. It’s very little effort beyond getting the books uploaded if you’re not going to play games with pricing.
I forgot about the part where you have to play with pricing, too, and it is ‘recommended’ that you run simultaneous free/low price sales on other sites.
There are SO many places where you can make mistakes in the systems – I did a bunch of them a while back, but won’t try again until the final book in the trilogy is ready to publish, which will be several years from now.
It just points out that readers get ‘the usual’ when all the authors are using the same ‘rules.’
And then readers really shouldn’t complain if they’re getting bored.
Best of luck with yours now that you’ve navigated the rapids!
Thanks, Alicia.