The Journal, Friday, 1/6

Hey Folks,

Amazon’s despicability factor just grew again in my mind. For the past several days, I’ve received an email each day urging me to be sure my upload of The Professional Fiction Writer: A Year in the Life is the final version I want to sell. (It’s up for preorder and ships on January 15.)

The thing is, if you remember, way back when I first tried to upload it, they wouldn’t allow it. They insisted I had to upload the final document THEN or I wasn’t allowed to put it on preorder.

Anytime anyone does something that doesn’t make sense, it generates uncertainty. Plus if they don’t trust that I bowed to their inane demand to put up the final work earlier, why have that requirement at all?

But uncertainty invaded. I went to my KDP account and looked. And they had TWO copies of the book cover there. Alongside one it said “Preorder blah blah blah.” Alongside the other, it said “Draft.” So I clicked to delete the draft.

Guess what? BOTH covers disappeared. Apparently, until it was actually published, they thought showing two covers and labelling them differently was a good idea. Some new MBA validating his job by inventing something nobody needs that’s generally annoying.

So I spent most of my waking-up time finding and uploading the file again. It’s done. It will still go live on January 15, but now it has a different Amazon inventory stock number (ASIN) etc. What a hassle.

Maybe folks who already preordered it will be told it’s no longer available. Who knows how much trouble this will cause. Yet I can’t even complain to Amazon about it because all their emails are “no-reply” and anything you send them goes to a machine.

Frankly, even though Amazon is CURRENTLY my largest sales venue, I hope they DO go out of business. They have gotten considerably too big for their britches.

* * *

If you looked for the free short story of the week this morning, my apologies. Apparently I didn’t schedule one for today. They’ll be back on 1/13.

Of Interest

Dean’s 1/5/17 Daily… Gaining Speed (http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/1517-daily-gaining-speed/) is enticing, at least to me.

Today, and Writing

Rolled out at 2:20, looking forward to getting to the novel by about 3. But it’s now 3:25 and I’ve just finished uploading The Professional Fiction Writer to Amazon. Ugh. I also wrote everything above this, but I did that while Amazon was dragging along, so no extra mislaid time.

The day will get better. I’ll start on the novel again soon, and my buddy Dan is gonna drop by later in the morning to visit. Two professional writers, good cigars, good conversation — what a deal.

Anyway, finally to the novel.

Well, I lost a little ground today, but it was totally worth it. Good friends and a good visit over good cigars are hard to beat.

Back tomorrow.

Fiction Words: 1416
Nonfiction Words: 470 (Journal)
So total words for the day: 470

Writing of The Claim (novel, working title)

Day 1…… 4391 words. Total words to date…… 4391
Day 2…… 3632 words. Total words to date…… 8023
Day 3…… 1416 words. Total words to date…… 9439

Total fiction words for the month……… 11067
Total fiction words for the year………… 11067
Total nonfiction words for the month… 4110
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 4110

Total words for the year (fiction and nonfiction)…… 15177