David Dubrow's Blog, page 65
April 7, 2014
My Piece for Big Hollywood
I wrote a piece for Breitbart's Big Hollywood about how conservatives should fight the culture war. In broad strokes, I discussed how the basics of good writing can be used to portray conservative ideas positively. In a nutshell, it's about showing, not telling. Here's an excerpt:
What do Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah, and Rendition have in common? They’re unsubtle. Outside of explicitly political films like Fahrenheit 9/11, nobody goes to the movies to have a political stance rammed down his throat, even if he agrees with the message. If your message gets in the way of your movie entertaining the widest audience possible, it needs to be cut.What it all boils down to is this: show, don’t tell. It’s a basic rule of writing, but you have to have the basics down to succeed.Read the whole piece there.
April 4, 2014
How I Spent My First Week After Publishing My First Novel, Part Three
For Part One of this series, click here. For Part Two, click here.
That I got anyone to agree to review my first novel is, I think, a bit of a miracle. Let's look at how I handicapped myself:
I published my novel without any advance readers having reviewed it. I had some beta readers read it, but I didn't ask them to write reviews. Not having any existing reviews made it a tougher sell for a potential reviewer, because it's almost entirely an unknown quantity. Book reviewers are very, very busy, and want immediate, easy-to-digest information on a book before they make a decision to read it. Not having a single review made my book a much more difficult sell.This was my first book written under my own name. My actual first book, The Ultimate Guide to Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse , was written under a pseudonym: F. Kim O'Neill. So in many respects, not only was my novel an unknown quantity, I myself am an unknown quantity. For reasons that escape me now, I failed to inform potential reviewers in my review request letters that I'd written that previous book. Luckily, it was a mistake I only had to make once. The Blessed Man and the Witch straddles genres and is more difficult to categorize than straight-up Paranormal Romance, Thriller, or even Horror. In fact, there's little romance in it at all, though it includes a character semi/sort of falling in love as well as a married couple having intimacy problems. It's also geared toward adults. It's not a YA thriller. It doesn't have vampires, werewolves, winged angels, or horned demons. Without those more familiar tropes, fans of the Paranormal genre will be more challenged. This is not to denigrate Paranormal thrillers in any way, shape, or form: I have absolutely no problem with people liking what they like. I just hope they'll like my stuff, too.My book is almost 140,000 words. It is a long book. A very long book. I didn't set out to write one that long, but that's how many words it took to write it. The freedom of being self-published includes the freedom of telling the story you want to tell the way you want to tell it. Many authors instead write shorter novels, even novellas, and are very successful at it. Hugh Howey comes to mind. Who wants to read a massive first novel effort from someone they've never heard of?Despite this, out of approximately 85 email and web form queries, I got 10 yes replies, and one maybe. It's important to remember that just because 10 book reviewers have agreed to review my book, it doesn't mean they actually will review it. I don't doubt their sincerity or professionalism, not even a little bit. But you can't count reviews until they're posted.
It made my day when, after days of writing nice, polite review request letters, making sure that each one was personalized and included all the information requested by the potential reviewer, someone sent me a "yes" reply. What it meant was that a combination of my request letter, cover art, blurb, and sample chapters available on Amazon drew someone in enough to want to not only read more, but tell other people about it. Of course, I hope I'll get a favorable review. But at least ten people are interested.
Most reviewers I sent emails to didn't get back to me, and after a couple of weeks, I listed them as likely no's. One thing I did after the fact was plug in all the review requests I sent into a spreadsheet to track yeses, nos, and maybes. This was a mistake: I should have done it as I went. So yes, make a spreadsheet, but update it as you go. It's more work to search through your email archives and browser history.
I did get a couple of no answers, which was a little disconcerting. One was a bit snotty (not because it was a no, but the way the no was communicated), and the other came more than two weeks after I sent the request, so I'd already written the reviewer off as a no. Not getting a reply is fine: disappointing, but fine. But a no answer a few weeks after the fact is a bit worse. So the lesson here is that some reviewers will do that to you. Deal and move on. At least you can cross them off the list when it comes time to try to get reviews for your next book.
So I told you what I did to make it more difficult for a reviewer to agree to read my book. Still, I got ten yes answers. Let me tell you what I did right:I looked carefully at every review site I sent requests to, read some of their previously-written book reviews, and followed their review request instructions to the letter. Some of them wanted cover images emailed to them as well as the blurb. Others had a specific order in which they'd like the book information provided . Yet others had web forms. A book review is very much a favor for a beginning author, so it's a smart thing for you to make the reviewer's decision-making process as easy as possible.I was polite and professional in my review request letter. Please and thank you go a long way, which is a lesson I teach my little boy every day. Book reviewers are always strapped for time, so it's nice to acknowledge that in your letter. I suspect that most of them would rather be reading and reviewing books than reading review request letters.I wrote a blurb that doesn't attempt to encapsulate the entire novel in a couple of paragraphs, but instead tells the reader what to expect. Over the course of time, it's possible, even likely that I'll change the blurb, but for now, it must have helped. 10 out of 85 doesn't seem like a lot, but in marketing terms, 12% is pretty good. The difficulty with my book is that it involves multiple characters, each with his or her own story arc, with everything converging at the end. To describe that, I looked at blurbs from book series written by Peter F. Hamilton, my favorite science fiction author, and emulated their formula. If you want to be successful, sometimes you have to model success.My book is well-written, and I made a special effort to engage and interest the reader in the novel's earliest lines. That helps. Now that you've gotten a reviewer interested in the title, genre, and blurb of your novel, the last thing you want to do is put him or her off with a boring first chapter. As of the time of this blog post, none of these reviews have yet been written or posted online. Some reviewers won't get to it until December of 2014, according to their respective timelines. That's fine. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and I have a sequel to write.
Also, last weekend I got 11 other people I don't know to agree to read and review The Blessed Man and the Witch. I'll tell you about that later.
TL;DR: Be nice in your review request letters and follow all the instructions/jump through all the hoops. Make spreadsheet of email and web addresses as you go. You won't hear back from most people. Be professional at all times.
That I got anyone to agree to review my first novel is, I think, a bit of a miracle. Let's look at how I handicapped myself:
I published my novel without any advance readers having reviewed it. I had some beta readers read it, but I didn't ask them to write reviews. Not having any existing reviews made it a tougher sell for a potential reviewer, because it's almost entirely an unknown quantity. Book reviewers are very, very busy, and want immediate, easy-to-digest information on a book before they make a decision to read it. Not having a single review made my book a much more difficult sell.This was my first book written under my own name. My actual first book, The Ultimate Guide to Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse , was written under a pseudonym: F. Kim O'Neill. So in many respects, not only was my novel an unknown quantity, I myself am an unknown quantity. For reasons that escape me now, I failed to inform potential reviewers in my review request letters that I'd written that previous book. Luckily, it was a mistake I only had to make once. The Blessed Man and the Witch straddles genres and is more difficult to categorize than straight-up Paranormal Romance, Thriller, or even Horror. In fact, there's little romance in it at all, though it includes a character semi/sort of falling in love as well as a married couple having intimacy problems. It's also geared toward adults. It's not a YA thriller. It doesn't have vampires, werewolves, winged angels, or horned demons. Without those more familiar tropes, fans of the Paranormal genre will be more challenged. This is not to denigrate Paranormal thrillers in any way, shape, or form: I have absolutely no problem with people liking what they like. I just hope they'll like my stuff, too.My book is almost 140,000 words. It is a long book. A very long book. I didn't set out to write one that long, but that's how many words it took to write it. The freedom of being self-published includes the freedom of telling the story you want to tell the way you want to tell it. Many authors instead write shorter novels, even novellas, and are very successful at it. Hugh Howey comes to mind. Who wants to read a massive first novel effort from someone they've never heard of?Despite this, out of approximately 85 email and web form queries, I got 10 yes replies, and one maybe. It's important to remember that just because 10 book reviewers have agreed to review my book, it doesn't mean they actually will review it. I don't doubt their sincerity or professionalism, not even a little bit. But you can't count reviews until they're posted.
It made my day when, after days of writing nice, polite review request letters, making sure that each one was personalized and included all the information requested by the potential reviewer, someone sent me a "yes" reply. What it meant was that a combination of my request letter, cover art, blurb, and sample chapters available on Amazon drew someone in enough to want to not only read more, but tell other people about it. Of course, I hope I'll get a favorable review. But at least ten people are interested.
Most reviewers I sent emails to didn't get back to me, and after a couple of weeks, I listed them as likely no's. One thing I did after the fact was plug in all the review requests I sent into a spreadsheet to track yeses, nos, and maybes. This was a mistake: I should have done it as I went. So yes, make a spreadsheet, but update it as you go. It's more work to search through your email archives and browser history.
I did get a couple of no answers, which was a little disconcerting. One was a bit snotty (not because it was a no, but the way the no was communicated), and the other came more than two weeks after I sent the request, so I'd already written the reviewer off as a no. Not getting a reply is fine: disappointing, but fine. But a no answer a few weeks after the fact is a bit worse. So the lesson here is that some reviewers will do that to you. Deal and move on. At least you can cross them off the list when it comes time to try to get reviews for your next book.
So I told you what I did to make it more difficult for a reviewer to agree to read my book. Still, I got ten yes answers. Let me tell you what I did right:I looked carefully at every review site I sent requests to, read some of their previously-written book reviews, and followed their review request instructions to the letter. Some of them wanted cover images emailed to them as well as the blurb. Others had a specific order in which they'd like the book information provided . Yet others had web forms. A book review is very much a favor for a beginning author, so it's a smart thing for you to make the reviewer's decision-making process as easy as possible.I was polite and professional in my review request letter. Please and thank you go a long way, which is a lesson I teach my little boy every day. Book reviewers are always strapped for time, so it's nice to acknowledge that in your letter. I suspect that most of them would rather be reading and reviewing books than reading review request letters.I wrote a blurb that doesn't attempt to encapsulate the entire novel in a couple of paragraphs, but instead tells the reader what to expect. Over the course of time, it's possible, even likely that I'll change the blurb, but for now, it must have helped. 10 out of 85 doesn't seem like a lot, but in marketing terms, 12% is pretty good. The difficulty with my book is that it involves multiple characters, each with his or her own story arc, with everything converging at the end. To describe that, I looked at blurbs from book series written by Peter F. Hamilton, my favorite science fiction author, and emulated their formula. If you want to be successful, sometimes you have to model success.My book is well-written, and I made a special effort to engage and interest the reader in the novel's earliest lines. That helps. Now that you've gotten a reviewer interested in the title, genre, and blurb of your novel, the last thing you want to do is put him or her off with a boring first chapter. As of the time of this blog post, none of these reviews have yet been written or posted online. Some reviewers won't get to it until December of 2014, according to their respective timelines. That's fine. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and I have a sequel to write.
Also, last weekend I got 11 other people I don't know to agree to read and review The Blessed Man and the Witch. I'll tell you about that later.
TL;DR: Be nice in your review request letters and follow all the instructions/jump through all the hoops. Make spreadsheet of email and web addresses as you go. You won't hear back from most people. Be professional at all times.
March 28, 2014
How I Spent My First Week After Publishing My First Novel, Part Two
For Part One of this series, click here.
I've already described how I didn't find the Amazon Top 1000 Reviewers list to be at all useful in marketing my novel; for the sake of this series, I include getting reviews as part of my marketing strategy.
Once I determined that further time would be wasted going after the Amazon Top 1000 Reviewers, I didn't stray too far from the well: I went after other Amazon reviewers. People who had taken the time to review books in the same genre as mine. Specifically, supernatural thrillers and horror novels. I focused on reviewers of novels based on the Supernatural television show. My book deals with angels, demons, and the like, so it was possible, even likely, that it would appeal to fans of that show, particularly readers.
It wasn't a bad idea, but so far, it hasn't panned out. Most people who review products on Amazon don't make their email addresses public. So I went through a lot of Amazon reviewer profiles with no luck. I don't blame them: we live in a World of Spam. Also, if I found that the Amazon reviewer had only reviewed one or two products over the course of a few years, he probably wouldn't review my book, even if presented with a free copy. It's just a feeling I have. The three people who did make their email addresses public, had reviewed many like products in the past, and probably would enjoy my book didn't respond to my email offer to send a free copy in exchange for a review. Despite this effort, it wasn't a bad idea, and I may return to it.
The next place I went was to The Indie View website. They have an impressive list of indie and self-published book review websites. It was the work of days combing through the list and finding those reviewers who might be interested in my book. The main challenges were:
Eliminating those review sites that would be put off by the content in any way. Many reviewers won't review books with profanity in them (my book has a lot of profanity in it), occult themes (my book deals very specifically with the occult), or religion (Biblical apocalypse=religion).Eliminating those review sites that only review certain kinds of books.Eliminating those review sites that hadn't published an update in more than a month. There were many of those.Eliminating those review sites that were no longer taking book review requests. Most of the review sites listed were booked up. That's a very important thing to remember: many, many book review websites are no longer taking book review requests. In Part Three, I'll describe the process further, but first, I have a few observations about my experiences with the Indie Reviewers List.The vast majority of book reviewers are women. This is not a value judgment in any way. It is what it is. Most book reviewers seem to prefer YA novels. I'm not sure if this is a cause of the YA novel craze, or a symptom of it. This is significant for me because my novel doesn't qualify for YA status in any way.Every book reviewer has a different Review Policy. You have to read each individual one to tailor your request properly.I will wrap this series up next week with Part Three.
TL;DR: Rather than going with Amazon's Top 1000 Reviewers, you may want to look at Amazon reviewers of similar books to yours and try to contact them. The Indie View has a huge list of potential book reviewers. It is a lot of work to comb through the list.
I've already described how I didn't find the Amazon Top 1000 Reviewers list to be at all useful in marketing my novel; for the sake of this series, I include getting reviews as part of my marketing strategy.
Once I determined that further time would be wasted going after the Amazon Top 1000 Reviewers, I didn't stray too far from the well: I went after other Amazon reviewers. People who had taken the time to review books in the same genre as mine. Specifically, supernatural thrillers and horror novels. I focused on reviewers of novels based on the Supernatural television show. My book deals with angels, demons, and the like, so it was possible, even likely, that it would appeal to fans of that show, particularly readers.
It wasn't a bad idea, but so far, it hasn't panned out. Most people who review products on Amazon don't make their email addresses public. So I went through a lot of Amazon reviewer profiles with no luck. I don't blame them: we live in a World of Spam. Also, if I found that the Amazon reviewer had only reviewed one or two products over the course of a few years, he probably wouldn't review my book, even if presented with a free copy. It's just a feeling I have. The three people who did make their email addresses public, had reviewed many like products in the past, and probably would enjoy my book didn't respond to my email offer to send a free copy in exchange for a review. Despite this effort, it wasn't a bad idea, and I may return to it.
The next place I went was to The Indie View website. They have an impressive list of indie and self-published book review websites. It was the work of days combing through the list and finding those reviewers who might be interested in my book. The main challenges were:
Eliminating those review sites that would be put off by the content in any way. Many reviewers won't review books with profanity in them (my book has a lot of profanity in it), occult themes (my book deals very specifically with the occult), or religion (Biblical apocalypse=religion).Eliminating those review sites that only review certain kinds of books.Eliminating those review sites that hadn't published an update in more than a month. There were many of those.Eliminating those review sites that were no longer taking book review requests. Most of the review sites listed were booked up. That's a very important thing to remember: many, many book review websites are no longer taking book review requests. In Part Three, I'll describe the process further, but first, I have a few observations about my experiences with the Indie Reviewers List.The vast majority of book reviewers are women. This is not a value judgment in any way. It is what it is. Most book reviewers seem to prefer YA novels. I'm not sure if this is a cause of the YA novel craze, or a symptom of it. This is significant for me because my novel doesn't qualify for YA status in any way.Every book reviewer has a different Review Policy. You have to read each individual one to tailor your request properly.I will wrap this series up next week with Part Three.
TL;DR: Rather than going with Amazon's Top 1000 Reviewers, you may want to look at Amazon reviewers of similar books to yours and try to contact them. The Indie View has a huge list of potential book reviewers. It is a lot of work to comb through the list.
March 21, 2014
How I Spent My First Week After Publishing My First Novel, Part One
When I worked with authors during my time in publishing, I pointed out that one of the great benefits of going with a traditional, established publisher was that the publisher took on most of the expenses (and effort) of selling and marketing the authors' hard work. Authors frequently marketed their own titles within our catalog, which invariably helped sales, but the publisher crafted magazine ads, created email blasts to potential buyers, sent out physical mailings, and built the product's online presence. It's a great deal, I told the authors. You get our four decades of market presence and selling expertise; all you have to do is create the content.
That's not the case with self-publishers. In addition to writing, and writing well (it's my contention that writers of self-published books have an extra responsibility to produce quality content because we have to overcome the long-held belief that people go into self-publishing because their work wouldn't make the cut at Simon & Schuster), a self-publisher has to create a market presence for himself from scratch. People who tout the benefits of self-publishing often like to say that if your work is good, it'll sell. That's true, but it's not the whole story. We've all seen books with plenty of rave reviews on Amazon or Smashwords that are so objectively bad (terrible grammar, amateurish writing) that their popularity is inexplicable. So the axiom of "if it's good, it'll sell" doesn't have a flip side: "if it's not good, it won't sell." Because we've all seen not-good books sell.
No matter how good your book is, it needs a boost. It could be the best book ever written, but if nobody ever heard of it, nobody will buy it. That boost has to come from the author. The author has to put himself out there twice: first through publishing his hard work, and second by telling the world how great it is. One of the best ways to make your book attractive to buyers is by getting reviews of your book displayed in the places people can buy it. It's tough enough to get a stranger to buy a self-published novel written by someone he's never even heard of, but to get him to do it without the advice of other people who've already read (and liked) it is nearly monumental.
So like everybody, I did a Google search on getting your book reviewed on Amazon, and learned that there's a not-so-secret list of Top 1000 Amazon Reviewers who have the Reviewing Power of Hercules. Get a good review from just one of them, and your success is, if not assured, certainly within your grasp.
The problem is that, like I said, everybody's done it already. It took me a half a day's worth of going through the list before I discovered the following things:Most of the people on the Top 1000 Amazon Reviewers list are aware that this list is made public, and have taken their email addresses off of their respective Amazon profiles.Many of these reviewers don't review books, or don't seem to.Many of the reviewers who do review books wouldn't want to review my book.The email addresses of the few people who do review books and might possibly review my book no longer work.Next week, I'll tell you what I did once I discovered that the Top 1000 Amazon Reviewers list had questionable utility. It doesn't involve explicit profanity, which is good.
TL;DR: Self-publishers have to work hard to market their own books, because nobody will do that for them. Reviews are a good away to market your book. Amazon's Top 1000 Reviewers list is a waste of time for self-publishers.
That's not the case with self-publishers. In addition to writing, and writing well (it's my contention that writers of self-published books have an extra responsibility to produce quality content because we have to overcome the long-held belief that people go into self-publishing because their work wouldn't make the cut at Simon & Schuster), a self-publisher has to create a market presence for himself from scratch. People who tout the benefits of self-publishing often like to say that if your work is good, it'll sell. That's true, but it's not the whole story. We've all seen books with plenty of rave reviews on Amazon or Smashwords that are so objectively bad (terrible grammar, amateurish writing) that their popularity is inexplicable. So the axiom of "if it's good, it'll sell" doesn't have a flip side: "if it's not good, it won't sell." Because we've all seen not-good books sell.
No matter how good your book is, it needs a boost. It could be the best book ever written, but if nobody ever heard of it, nobody will buy it. That boost has to come from the author. The author has to put himself out there twice: first through publishing his hard work, and second by telling the world how great it is. One of the best ways to make your book attractive to buyers is by getting reviews of your book displayed in the places people can buy it. It's tough enough to get a stranger to buy a self-published novel written by someone he's never even heard of, but to get him to do it without the advice of other people who've already read (and liked) it is nearly monumental.
So like everybody, I did a Google search on getting your book reviewed on Amazon, and learned that there's a not-so-secret list of Top 1000 Amazon Reviewers who have the Reviewing Power of Hercules. Get a good review from just one of them, and your success is, if not assured, certainly within your grasp.
The problem is that, like I said, everybody's done it already. It took me a half a day's worth of going through the list before I discovered the following things:Most of the people on the Top 1000 Amazon Reviewers list are aware that this list is made public, and have taken their email addresses off of their respective Amazon profiles.Many of these reviewers don't review books, or don't seem to.Many of the reviewers who do review books wouldn't want to review my book.The email addresses of the few people who do review books and might possibly review my book no longer work.Next week, I'll tell you what I did once I discovered that the Top 1000 Amazon Reviewers list had questionable utility. It doesn't involve explicit profanity, which is good.
TL;DR: Self-publishers have to work hard to market their own books, because nobody will do that for them. Reviews are a good away to market your book. Amazon's Top 1000 Reviewers list is a waste of time for self-publishers.
March 14, 2014
How I Totally Messed up My First Book Upload
This happened last week, but I remember it like it happened last week: I'd totally messed up my first book upload.
My "turn this book on and watch the sweet money roll in" checklist was pretty much complete:
1) Beta readers had given me feedback on the final draft, and I'd incorporated their advice where appropriate.
2) I'd done extensive research on where to release the book: Smashwords vs. KDP Select, and gone with KDP Select. More on why in a later post.
3) I'd ordered and read through Building Your Book for Kindle and Aaron Shepard's From Word to Kindle .
4) I'd downloaded, read through, and followed almost all the directions of Mark Coker's Smashwords Style Guide . This included formatting a table of contents that linked to all the chapters, setting proper paragraph styles, and other details that would make the book look good on a screen.
Tense, even a little terrified, I'd logged onto Amazon's KDP Select site and uploaded the file. The system seemed to accept it without difficulty. It even told me about a typo that I'd missed. The one typo. Hey, I thought. This thing's working! I'm going to be a published writer (again)!
And then I remembered that the file I'd uploaded was a Word file, not an HTML file. I hadn't saved it as an HTML file.
Despite the fact that excoriating oneself with the kind of language that would make a longshoreman cover his ears in shock and horror doesn't spur anything except feelings of self-loathing, I will admit that I engaged in that kind of behavior for a short while. I couldn't believe that I'd screwed it up.
Tension turning to panic, I sent a quick message to Amazon, asking them to STOP THE PRESSES! What if somebody sees this piece of improperly-formatted poop? I mean, first impressions are everything. This is hardly the proper debut for a first novel. Maybe I'm in over my head.
About an hour after I'd saved the file in HTML and re-checked it for errors, I got a nice email from Amazon saying that at my request, they'd moved my book back from In Progress to Draft. My relief was immeasurable. A couple hours after that, making triply sure that I had the right file in the right format, I dared to upload it again.
A few days later, I asked an author friend whom I'd worked with and known for fourteen years to take a look at the sample chapters available on Amazon. He responded with admirable promptness, and told me about two big things to fix:
1) The long dashes I'd used to signify an interruption in speech weren't long enough. I needed to change them to M dashes (AKA em dashes). I'd stupidly let Word do that for me. As it turns out, to get an M dash, hold down CTRL, ALT, and the minus sign on the number pad on your keyboard.
2) Because I grew up in the 70's and 80's, I was taught to always put two spaces after a period. You shouldn't do that anymore.
This news was slightly less agonizing, even though some friends and family had already downloaded the version with improper dashes and too many spaces. It took another hour or so, but I fixed it and uploaded a better version late that night.
The bottom line is that as a self-publisher, it's my responsibility to make sure all these details are hammered down. I didn't hire a professional editor to edit my novel (though one of my beta readers is a professional book editor). Proper grammar and good formatting are absolutely vital to a good product. I was fortunate to have a good friend help me with excellent advice. And now that I've made those mistakes, I won't have to make them again.
TL;DR: Make sure you save the draft you plan to upload as an HTML file. Also, use M dashes where appropriate (Word won't put them in for you), and put only one space after a period.
My "turn this book on and watch the sweet money roll in" checklist was pretty much complete:
1) Beta readers had given me feedback on the final draft, and I'd incorporated their advice where appropriate.
2) I'd done extensive research on where to release the book: Smashwords vs. KDP Select, and gone with KDP Select. More on why in a later post.
3) I'd ordered and read through Building Your Book for Kindle and Aaron Shepard's From Word to Kindle .
4) I'd downloaded, read through, and followed almost all the directions of Mark Coker's Smashwords Style Guide . This included formatting a table of contents that linked to all the chapters, setting proper paragraph styles, and other details that would make the book look good on a screen.
Tense, even a little terrified, I'd logged onto Amazon's KDP Select site and uploaded the file. The system seemed to accept it without difficulty. It even told me about a typo that I'd missed. The one typo. Hey, I thought. This thing's working! I'm going to be a published writer (again)!
And then I remembered that the file I'd uploaded was a Word file, not an HTML file. I hadn't saved it as an HTML file.
Despite the fact that excoriating oneself with the kind of language that would make a longshoreman cover his ears in shock and horror doesn't spur anything except feelings of self-loathing, I will admit that I engaged in that kind of behavior for a short while. I couldn't believe that I'd screwed it up.
Tension turning to panic, I sent a quick message to Amazon, asking them to STOP THE PRESSES! What if somebody sees this piece of improperly-formatted poop? I mean, first impressions are everything. This is hardly the proper debut for a first novel. Maybe I'm in over my head.
About an hour after I'd saved the file in HTML and re-checked it for errors, I got a nice email from Amazon saying that at my request, they'd moved my book back from In Progress to Draft. My relief was immeasurable. A couple hours after that, making triply sure that I had the right file in the right format, I dared to upload it again.
A few days later, I asked an author friend whom I'd worked with and known for fourteen years to take a look at the sample chapters available on Amazon. He responded with admirable promptness, and told me about two big things to fix:
1) The long dashes I'd used to signify an interruption in speech weren't long enough. I needed to change them to M dashes (AKA em dashes). I'd stupidly let Word do that for me. As it turns out, to get an M dash, hold down CTRL, ALT, and the minus sign on the number pad on your keyboard.
2) Because I grew up in the 70's and 80's, I was taught to always put two spaces after a period. You shouldn't do that anymore.
This news was slightly less agonizing, even though some friends and family had already downloaded the version with improper dashes and too many spaces. It took another hour or so, but I fixed it and uploaded a better version late that night.
The bottom line is that as a self-publisher, it's my responsibility to make sure all these details are hammered down. I didn't hire a professional editor to edit my novel (though one of my beta readers is a professional book editor). Proper grammar and good formatting are absolutely vital to a good product. I was fortunate to have a good friend help me with excellent advice. And now that I've made those mistakes, I won't have to make them again.
TL;DR: Make sure you save the draft you plan to upload as an HTML file. Also, use M dashes where appropriate (Word won't put them in for you), and put only one space after a period.
