Have You Ever Published Something on ACCIDENT?

[Marie Silk]

Yes, this is actually a thing. Any stories are welcome about works of yours that were not supposed to be published the way they were.

Here is my true story about something I wrote that was NEVER MEANT TO SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY, but ended up being published somehow.

I went to a Baptist church, and as many people know, Baptists like their potlucks. Well someone had the idea that we should all submit our recipes which would then be published in an official church cookbook. We were supposed to email our recipes to the lady in charge who would arrange and publish them, then she would order 100 books. There were two recipes in particular that the others asked me to submit, so I sat down at my computer one day and typed them out. Around the same time frame, I had typed out a random rant about the food industry. I emailed my recipes (or what I thought was the recipes) to the lady. Turns out I unknowingly attached the wrong file!

Fast forward to the day the bulk order of cookbooks arrived at the church. I bought a couple of books and flipped through to find my recipes. They were not in there. I was really confused, but shrugged it off. Maybe the lady didn't get my recipes in time.

The next Sunday, everyone at church was coming up to me telling me about how much they loved my article. I had NO IDEA what they were talking about, and racked my brain for what article of mine they ever would have seen. At least twenty people mentioned it to me or my family. I was bewildered. It was later that day that my sister picked up the church cookbook at my house. We were all sitting in the living room, and I felt like I suddenly entered the Twilight Zone as my sister proceeded to READ ALOUD my rant on the food industry! I was in shock, and started shrieking "How are you reading that?!" "Why are these words coming out of your mouth?!" As far as I knew, the writing was safely stored in my computer. I took the book from her, and there on the FIRST PAGE of the cookbook was my idiotic rant! I WAS MORTIFIED!

Sorry for the all caps, but this really was one of the most confusing, embarrassing moments of my life. I thought about how much money I had so I could go buy the rest of the cookbooks at church so no one else would see my writing. It was crazy!

So...anything like this ever happen to you?

[Nat]

That's a fun story! I accidentally uploaded the wrong file to the wrong book on KDP, but that was easily fixed. But nothing as fantastic as having your rant published in a local cookbook!

[G.G.]

Oh my, nothing like you, Marie. That's always my biggest fear when I upload a book. That and what I did a year or so ago but that one became reality.

I wanted to upload a corrected file of Destiny, my sequel, to Smashwords, and I accidently uploaded and replaced Fate (book one) with it. It took me a few days to realize it and I had to re-upload the right files at the right place, but anyone familiar with Smashwords knows that if someone downloaded your book in the past, they have access to all the subsequent uploads of that book (updates usually) so anyone who had bought Fate, and would re-download it, would get the sequel instead. In other words they would get the sequel free. I had to contact Smashwords and ask them to remove that version of 'Fate' since it wasn't actually Fate. A lot of excitement, but they were really nice and fixed it within a couple of hours after I contacted them. Disaster avoided. :P

My story sounds confusing but believe me, I was as confused trying to fix my mistake. hehe

[Dwayne, Head of Lettuce]

Some of my readers suspect everything I publish was done by accident.

Very funny story, Marie!

[Martin]

I published this collection by accident:

https://www.amazon.com/Solstice-31-Sa...

The collection was not ready and I was ordering proofs and hit the wrong thing!

[Christina]

In the sixth grade, our school participated in a statewide literary competion where kids' submissions were judged and the winners would be printed in a special magazine that would be distributed to schools and libraries around the state. Kind of cool, if you think about it. Well, our English teacher required the entire class to write a poem for consideration.

Mine was chosen. Except, it wasn't the poem I'd written, but a silly rhyming haiku I'd written just because we'd learned haikus don't rhyme and I was the subversive class clown.