Letting Go (aka Squeaky-Bum Time)

If you’ve never set up a pre-order with Amazon KDP Select, here is a brief look at what happens behind the scenes.  The whole idea of making your book available for pre-order is of course to build anticipation among readers ahead of its publication.  You can set your book for pre-order up to 90 days before its publication date.  You need to have your cover done and to have a completed draft of the manuscript.  Then, on your Amazon author account dashboard, you get a helpful countdown timer that looks like this:

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However, the one thing Amazon does take very seriously is customer satisfaction.  As time passes, you’ll get reminder emails.  Here is an example screenshot from my inbox:

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All of those emails all say the same thing, this:

Your pre-order is set for release at 03/16/2019. Please check your KDP account to ensure that you’ve uploaded the final version of the book you want customers to receive. Maintaining a positive customer experience is important, and part of that experience is to ensure that customers get the version of the book you would like them to read. A bad customer experience could result in negative customer reviews for your book.

Although it doesn’t actually say Failure to comply will result in your annihilation, the inference is certainly there.  In 2017, I pushed back the publication date of Dystopia Descending by two weeks after I’d set up the pre-order.  Amazon responded by banning me from setting up another pre-order for one year.  So, overall, I wasn’t too distraught that Invasion took longer than I thought to write, because at least with the passing of time, I’d got the ability to pre-order back.  And this time around, I’ve taken no chances.

This week, I let go of The Repulse Chronicles, Book Two: Invasion.  The paperback is published, and with many thanks to a certain young man in the US and his e-book conversion skills, yesterday I uploaded the final-as-far-as-I’m-concerned version to Amazon.  Of course, it is possible to continue revising a manuscript indefinitely, but my personal rule of thumb is when I realise I’m re-editing the same sentences for the third time, then it really is time to let the book go.  My readers can—and will—make up their own minds.  And they’re pretty discerning readers, too.

In any case, Amazon will lock me out of the book on Tuesday 12 ahead of publication on Saturday 16.  For reasons best known to those crazy cats at Amazon, they need four days to prepare to transmit a stream of electrons that travel at the speed of light.

And just to have some extra fun at this stage of the writing process, over the last two weeks we have had decorators in the James household to cheer the place up.  Here are some before and after shots.  See if you can spot the difference