Imagine me.  Dancing in circles.  With my hands thrown out wide.

That is how I feel when I finish writing a story.

But then….dun dun dohhh (is that even how you spell that sound?) you reach the hallowed walls of where you shall release the story into the world (also, often called publishing it).  

From here is should just be snip snap done.  Right?  Fill in a few fields, load up the manuscript, up goes the book cover, le voila!  Or not.

I’m an ‘indie’ publisher (independent but ‘indie’ sounds so adventurous).  Most of us publish on Amazon and Kindle because, well, it’s free…and Amazon IS the big dog in the house.  I wonder what percentage of the world’s population has an Amazon account?  Curious?  Me too.  To the internet! [Amazon has approximately 300 million active users.  That is about 3.7% of the world’s 8.1 billion people. Take that with a grain of salt and its an interesting number.]

Oh right…publishing.  So the book is done and a cover has been designed.  Now I pulled up KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) and begin to load up my manuscript, cover and fill in the description fields.  HARD STOP on the manuscript.  Amazon/KDP won’t tell me what is wrong with the file.  It just glares at me in red saying the upload failed.  Excuse me while I go outside and Charlie Brown a tree.

Sigh.  That didn’t help and now my forehead is red and scratched and I have a headache.  No wonder Charlie Brown sighs so much.

Okay.  Bucking myself up.  You can do this.  You’ve got what it takes!  Step by step you will figure out the problem.  Yes!  I can!

Hmm…despite where it says elsewhere, only a PDF file is acceptable.  Okay.  I work the magic and make a PDF copy of my book.  Uploading…..upload failed.  Written in cherry red.  

It’s time for reading some or all of Amazon’s helpful hints for formatting a file to be uploaded.  Buried in there is a reference to they have created their own font, designed to be the most reader friendly while minimizing the page count for the author so the base cost is less.  I have a suspicion….  I download Amazon’s font.  I change all of the book to be in that font.  I re-upload it.  SUCCESS! Hmmm….is Amazon forcing writers to use one font only – theirs?  Smarter heads than mine are probably already sorting through this.  I hope.

So, it is uploaded!  Yeah!  Now the cover.  The cover is short in width by .098 in whatever measurement type they use.  WHY???  Seeking answers I peer at every field…where is the answer.  Why is my professionally made (read that as ‘not by me’) cover no longer fitting.  Suddenly, I notice that my book is now 399 pages long.  That is quite a bit longer than before.  Oh well.  Okay.  

I contact the woman who made the cover (rebecacvrs on Fiverr).  For five bucks she remakes the covers to fit a 400 page book.  She, by the way, is pretty amazing.  She lives…correction….lived in Ukraine until recently when it became too dangerous where she was and she has moved to Estonia.  Running a business in the middle of that hell leaves me humbled.  

New cover uploaded!  Yeah!    Paperback book is up and will be live on Amazon within a few days.  Now for the Kindle version.  Should be simple.  Right?  I mean, I figured out the hurdles already. But…NOOOOOOOO!

Kindle has its own formatting software.  Pushing all the ones already on the market (and doing a great job) off the table.  The fine print assures me that if I am having trouble just use their formatter and all will be peachy keen.

I use their formatter.  Upload the book.  FAILED TO UPLOAD.  I would strangle my laptop but that’s as stupid as yelling at the window person in a fast food line when your order is wrong.  To add insult to injury, when I upload my headshot, it puts it in rotated 90 degrees.  No problem.  I got this.  Open the photo.  Rotate right.  ARGH!  I mean left.  Upload.  It loads the photo up rotated to the left.  Excuse me….I fell another Charlie Brown moment coming on.

Okay.  Sigh.  Once more into the fray!  Also known as, let me tilt at that windmill.  

I made a copy that is not rotated but I made it smaller.  My camera takes really HUGE photos.  Dunno why.  Success!  

There were a few more battles before it was finally uploaded but with a deep long ‘ahhhhh’ I clicked the button to publish it.  Now within a few days it will appear for you on Amazon.  

With all my heart, I appreciate the encouragement and feedback you have given. I hope you find this story worthy of your time.