Looking at books in a library while shelving them, I realised what I was so envious about. And it was so tragically minor you’d think it wasn’t so impossible as it seemed to be. I envy the professionalism these authors got. That’s it. I envy they had a company that cared enough about the physical product to present it in a manner fitting publication and perhaps wider distribution. I had to promote a substandard product in both instances when all this stupid woman had to do was make my book look good. You’ll never catch me on the “never judging books by their covers” train. I was embarrassed and infuriated by the end results. I was so upset and I had to cover it all up with shrugs and dismissive comments. Then when it came time to fix these errors, they didn’t come through, they shut down instead. To have demands placed on me to market an inferior product, knowing that it deserved better in terms of editing and presentation, it was a complete and utter insult to have to accept. Even me asking nicely to fix one thing was met with a no, I can’t. You can, you just don’t want to pull it off the shelf even though you fucked it up. I assumed I would get final say on the cover, had I known that was what was going to print, I’d have stopped it, and she robbed me of that opportunity. Even if she was later willing to edit and reprint these, something that meant I was willing to tough it out, I can’t be sure it would’ve been better. I waited and waited for new copies. I hoped she’d fix the issues she created with pure negligence. She didn’t. I didn’t hate the interior of the first, just the exterior, I could live with the exterior on the second if she hadn’t fucked up the interior. I never would’ve let them go to print without prior review and approval. She needed someone else to look over that final pdf, all she had to do was send me a copy and I’d have told her what to fix. She wasn’t willing. She was too busy using outdated marketing methods and trying to get a podcast up and running at the expense of production.
That’s all I wanted, just something that would look like a real book. I go back and forth on whether my books look “real” when I know they’d be rejected by a store. Some poor blind, gay author had their picture book returned after the store couldn’t alienate their homophobic customers. People seem to think it’s “every” author’s dream to see their book in a store, sincerely it wasn’t ever completely mine, I just knew my shit deserved to be there regardless. It deserved to be presented properly. I didn’t need an audiobook or full scale marketing or any promise of profits. Just something I could look at and not be so angry with when I finally held it in my hands. I wish I could afford to get them all reprinted properly but I can’t. I try to live with them as is.
At least the last reviewer I spoke to has been really professional about the ad she was willing to post for me, and she’s stayed in touch. I know it won’t make much difference, I would like someone to market these for me. The fact I was so open to just being in a well presented anthology or even a series as a ghostwriter, that’s how low my expectations were, I could accept anonymity provided the book looked good and my words were presented properly. I wasn’t the only one who just wanted to say they’d had one thing published as a bucket list item, but maybe I was the only one who got mad enough when the results were subpar. This is why anyone who’s proud of their self-published books has my admiration. They weren’t sullied by college professors telling them traditional publications were the only way to be taken seriously.
I bothered to look at the copies I had left (which I’d ordered for myself and other people and paid far too much for in my impatience to get the copies I was promised directly) and there’s attempts at professionalism ruined by laziness: page numbers not removed for front and back matter, alignment issues, cheapest paper possible used. (I can probably pinpoint the exact dimensions and paper type she chose). The novel’s front cover looks good, and I can’t blame the spine/back being off, that’s the stupid risk you take with Amazon’s printing services *, but I know exactly what she did. She created a passable file to get it within the standard print margins (she asked me to modify the second cover with this in mind, so she fucking knew I could make amendments, and she did let me send another copy, again had she sent me the pdf I could’ve picked up the major issue) but she had no intention of figuring out how to hide page numbers, she did the bare minimum to pass the print requirements. I know she’d picked up other people’s errors, it was like if she felt like putting effort into looking for errors during the flaccid formatting process (the website promises basic editing services, which again, it’s all I wanted her to do) It felt like the end result really was subject to how she felt on the day editing the material. And when I saw her produce an anthology properly that would’ve worked on other devices, I had genuine hope she could republish my shit just as well. It looked good, she showed capability then shit the bed. The one thing people didn’t like was the poorly formatted epub and .mobi copies she again rushed to print likely to satisfy their being “a version” on Kindle not the best version possible. I think I was the only person she worked with who had any experience with KDP printing and knowing what was required, but there was no way in hell I’d offer to help her fix the others.
I know there are a bunch of rightwing publishers now who’ll let shit books go to print with errors but they still manage to put more effort into shit that doesn’t have any business being in print. People who aren’t even good writers and who need ghostwriters to help them finish (I don’t hold this against certain people, with others, it proves they hadn’t the talent to even write their own story. I know others have written theirs from scratch and it was arduous for them) The public accepts celebrities need assistance in producing a book. But they tend to give passes to stuff that’s terrible.
I’ll never get over this it’s something I have to accept and move on from. Right now, I’m only interested in getting back on a payroll of some description, I’m kind of squandering my personal time and freedom with a lot of angst over shit I can’t change.
I thought maybe if I included some kind of logo on the back covers of the print books it'd look a bit more interesting. As it's transpiring, this is going badly for some more than others. The two I had professionally made aren't behaving as normal. Two are also giving me formatting errors on the actual books, I'm not prepared to fuck about with any of this to make it work, so I'll go with the ones I can amend and leave those I can't. It's not that big of a deal, again nobody's buying these books, I don't even know if Amazon will load the new back covers since it's refused to on one already, so me doing this is actually utterly pointless. I liked what I did with them, it probably wouldn't print that well in reality either. I'm not prepared to fix margins to make it work, it'll give me a fucking headache, it was just me thinking I could make my shit look more marketable and real to a paying audience. Another one's just thrown up a bunch of errors I haven't the time to deal with. Sometimes fixing this shit is like upsetting a delicate ecosystem with a tiny alteration throwing the whole thing out the window, I do appreciate how much of a headache this thing can cause, but Amazon could've easily replaced this with something else, they took it off CreateSpace but made no massive efforts to improve it. I don't even know if I could finish the ones that are fine without it blocking me for trying to publish three books in a day.
It didn't stop me doing more than three and I managed to get the ones I made from scratch to work, I've completely lost the hardcover copy I had created, I know I only paid 5 bucks for it but I stupidly haven't backed it up anywhere, except it's on my fucking laptop of course, I could upload it after all. Because fuck me, I suck at backing up shit. I'm currently stuck with one left on the board that won't go through and I've done to much correcting this bullshit so I'm out. I would really love to know what the fuck happened between it being approved to not being approved other than me fucking with the covers.
I also heard a certain person has started posting again on YouTube. I think the three book deal might be over now along with the hiatus I thought would never end. I felt very fucking sour to hear it and I really need to get past it, she didn’t get what she wanted out of it (I haven’t seen one YouTuber leave it forever to write, sorry), maybe she’s realised where the smart money is. I’m still not going to watch her new content, I don’t care whether she has to market a book or will never bring it up again (I could go back to Game Grumps but I feel like it’s been far too long and I don’t want to risk it with them or her). I’m not resubscribing. I’m done.
