Good News / Bad News - Update on MAXIM ULTRA
UPDATE - Finally got this mostly sorted with Amazon and both eBook AND Paperback formats are
NOW AVAILABLE!!!
Click HERE to get in on all the Maxim Ultra goodness!
Sooo…..some good news and some potentially bad news.
The good news is, the eBook version of MAXIM ULTRA is all set to be released TOMORROW (April 16th)! Thank you to all those who have already pre-ordered it.
The potential bad news is, the paperback might take a little longer to show up in the Amazon store thanks to Amazon ROYALLY SCREWING UP my product placement. Allow me to explain.
As I’ve been explaining all throughout the lead up to release, for some stupid reason, Kindle Direct Publishing—Amazon’s self-publishing portal—does not allow pre-orders on paperbacks. So, if you want your paperback to launch the same day as your eBook, you need to guesstimate when a good time is to publish the damn thing. I chose last Thursday night, because as KDP states all over the place, it can take up to 72 hours for the book to appear on Amazon. Fine. No problem.
I got an email Friday night while at the ABYSMAL reboot of Hellboy with Matt King and Dirty A. The email stated that my paperback was ready to go. Hooray! As soon as I got home, I booted up my laptop and clicked on the link so that I could order some Author Copies for myself and start to get the word out that the book was available. When I got to Amazon, I was greeted with THIS:
Uh….WTF is this?
That’s right, my novel, which I have slaved over for YEARS to complete and get to market, had been placed on a product page for Ladies’ fucking tank tops. Oh, I’m sorry, “Sexy T-Shirt Tunics.” What in the actual fuck?
I immediately reached out to Amazon, telling them this was not cool and to rectify the issue. The email I got back the next morning did….not make me happy. The customer service rep said that they would get to work on it, but that it could take a few days to sort out and they’d get back to me by end of business on TUESDAY, APRIL 16th. Well, shit. That’s when the damn book is supposed to come out! I sent them another nasty-gram and got a more measured response that was clearly a nice way of saying, “We understand, but fuck you, we’re Amazon.”
So, long story short, if you want the paperback—which is, y’know, the perfect presentation of the book, as opposed to the eBook, which strips out all the personality fonts—you may have to wait a little longer. I’m beyond livid about this, but there isn’t really anything I can do. This is what happens when giant conglomerates absorb everything—looking at you, Disney.
My first book, Great Big World, was designed and printed through CreateSpace, which was owned by Amazon, but was still its own entity. That went off without a hitch and I was very pleased with the end result. In the intervening years, Amazon folded CreateSpace into itself and now indie authors like myself have to deal with this shit.
Who knows? Maybe this will all be fixed by tomorrow morning and the launch can go forward as I envisioned, but I doubt it. Sorry for any inconvenience and for the delay—blame Amazon. In fact, feel free to spread this story around. And as always, thanks for reading!