A Small Set-Back

How does that saying go—Don’t count your chickens until they’re hatched? Yesterday, I woke up on top of the world, ready to order the final proof copy of my book, after tweaking the cover one last time.

I logged into my KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) account and uploaded the new cover image. I moved through the steps just as I had the previous two times when I ordered proofs. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get to the “Order Proof” step. What was happening?

Their software was reporting errors with the inside margin, but I was able to order proofs before despite that. I saw there was a support page, so I went there and put it my phone number for a call back. It was 9:30 p.m., so I didn’t expect anything until morning.

Before I could even put my phone on the bedside stand, it rang! What a shock! It was Amazon! Even more amazing (see what I did there?) it was an ACTUAL HUMAN!!

The conversation was quite productive. Turns out, even if I successfully ordered the proof, and even if the proof looked perfect, the quality control department WOULD NOT allow the project to move to the final publication stage with the current errors unresolved. My first thought was that I was glad I didn’t spend the $10 for another proof. My second thought was how would I ever get to sleep without knowing if my book designer, Sue, would be able to resolve the issue.

Luckily, I slept well all night. (That might have had something to do with the fact that my 8-year-old granddaughter had slept over the night before and we were very busy all day!!) This morning I woke up almost dreading what the day might bring. After an online chat with Amazon, in which the agent gave me very specific measurements for margins, I emailed Sue. She responded that she had definitely adhered to their requirements; perhaps the issue had something to do with the trim size?

The trim size was not the problem. I sent Sue the link to Amazon’s support pages. That was followed by a phone call, during which Sue educated me about “creep.” Don’t ask me to explain what that is exactly. But, I gather it has something to do with the way Amazon categories the number of pages in your book in order to calculate the necessary margin widths. For instance, if your book has between 24-150 pages, there is one set of margin requirements, between 151-300 another, and so on. My book was 438 pages, so we had used the margins for books from 301-500 pages. Thinking maybe because the page count was so close to the top end, Sue decided to “creep” up to the next level and use those measurements.

Voila! That was the trick! Never in a million years would I have thought to do that. I uploaded the newly revised PDF to Amazon and held my breath while it processed.

I clicked the “Launch Previewer” button. Still holding my breath, I also crossed my fingers. NO ERRORS!!! And even better, I didn’t have to redo the cover.

IT IS DONE. The newest proof will be here by Saturday. Hopefully nothing really bad will happen (are you still paying attention – did you catch that?) and everything will be perfect.

NOTE: All the images in this post were AI generated using Microsoft’s Image Creator.