Because everyone needs a little goatF in their new release

Hi there. So, by now some folks will have heard that there was a little hitch in getting The Family We Make launched. Despite trying it out on 5 Kindle devices and 4 epub, it turned out that one of the margin techniques that my formatter used, trying to make it really pretty, caused words to run off the page on a few older Kindles (Keyboards and some others) and older Nooks. This is not conducive to a good reading experience, or, you know, any reading experience. *insert panicked reformatting here* Anyway, we quickly got a new version up that should work for everyone. But...

I did wonder if I perhaps finally had a day that would qualify as a clusterfuck. Because on top of finding out I'd sold people a defective file, and finding out that Amazon was messing up the process of replacing it, I had some personal minor crises going on with both kids, plus an 8-hour crazy shift at my real job. But that afternoon I met some people whose days had been even worse than mine. So I repeated "no one is dead" and "it's just a book" and downgraded the day to a goatfuck. (My thanks to Suzanne Brockmann's SEALS for the distinction, and meaning no disrespect to the actual pygmy goats in The Family We Make . )

Here's the deal. If you buy the book now, it should be fine. If you bought the book anytime from yesterday (Saturday the 16th) onward, you should have a good file. If not, I definitely want to hear about it! If you bought it before Saturday you may have a file that doesn't work on a few older devices. Look at the first page. If the lines run off the page (or on a Nook, run right to the edge or try to scroll), it's defective. From Smashwords or ARe, I believe you should just be able to download the new version. From Amazon...

Amazon is weird about versions. They insist on inspecting the problem and if they agree it's needed, they may "push" the new file to previous customers. Inspection can take up to 4 weeks. Right now, if you bought it once, getting the new one is harder. If you return and rebuy the book, they will still sell you the old version. (Why? WHY?!) But I'm told if you turn on Annotations Backup you might get the new one, and if not you can call tech support and they will get the new version for you. Note - if you have a big library, turning on Automatic Book Update may result in a lot of books trying to update for you. Which could be a problem, and might make calling tech support a better option. Someone also told me they used Calibre to recreate the mobi file for them, and that worked.

Or email me at kajeharper~at~yahoo~dot~com and I will make sure the correct version gets into your hands.

I'm sorry this release had bugs.

The picture is for my poor formatter - he tried to do something new he'd seen recommended to make the file look prettier on the page, and it worked on all our tests, but... Yeah. Not quite right. On the other hand, I love the Chapter headings and divider curlicues he used to match the title font. (The headings won't show on some Smashwords files because... yeah, compatibility.) Anyway, he worked hard to fix this, even when he'd just had minor surgery. So thank you Michael for all the amazing effort to get it right.

Now I hope we can focus on the story. I had two lovely early reviews from Boy Meets Boy Reviews and Multitaskingmommas. It was such a wonderful lift in the goatfuck days to read those. I hope readers enjoy meeting Rick and Travis, and get to read all the words now.