Well, after weeks of preparation launch week is finally here. Technically the book comes out tomorrow, but the first of two book blog tours kicked off today, and so things already feel pretty busy around here. Over on Twitter I’ve been busy retweeting and on Facebok sharing posts, and just generally trying to stay on top of things.
So, I’ll probably keep things short and sweet in this update. I still don’t feel entirely prepared for all this, but maybe that’s just me being too anxious about this whole thing.
Of course, there are always issues. Saturday night I submitted the Kindle paperback for publication. For reasons I don’t entirely understand Amazon does not allow you to do a preorder with these books, which is, frankly, maddening. I’m also publishing a paperback with Ingram Spark, which does allow preorders. So, Amazon shoppers have been able to preorder a paperback, just not the Kindle one.
Once you submit a paperback for publication (all the files have been there for awhile and I received a proof copy awhile ago) then there is a review of your files before they go live. Well, my cover was flagged for not having a full bleed. I honestly have no clue why since I know that it did. The only thing I can think is that possibly the printing specs were changed from when I downloaded a template since that was months ago at this point. So, I downloaded a new template and resubmitted the files.
If you are planning to release a KDP paperback version and want it available on your launch day keep in mind that the review period can take a few days, and there can be unexpected issues. I’m not that concerned since as I’ve said thre is the Ingram Spark paperback available too, though on Amazon is someone buys th KDP paperback I make roughly twice what I would make if they bought the Ingram paperback version.
So, with any luck the revised cover will pass muster and the KDP paperback will be available by launch day.
Besides the blog tours, I have an email going out to my mailing list tomorrow for launch day, my big virtual launch party via YouTube tomorrow night, and a series of advertising that will start running tomorrow. And for now, I’m just going to try to keep up with all the social media stuff.