Why I Have No Hair

Well. I mean...if I had hair I would have pulled it out this week. But it was too long for a title. (not my hair) I wonder if anyone reading this has self published a paperback with Amazon. I did it seamlessley with my first book, The Siege of Mr Khan's Curry Shop, but this one, Who's Got The Biscuits, 'Ay caramba'.

With a paperback you take a manuscript and you set the Trim, the Margins etc... I won't bore you with whole shenanigns, but for arguments sake let us pretend I did it to the letter. One week later the author's copy arrives and the margins are wrong. Okay, submit the manuscript again, but this time use the Amazon Template. A week later the second author's copy arrives, and it is wrong. Not only are the margins wrong but now there are no paragraph indents. I guess AI has something to do with it.

I considered prayer but I'm told there are about 3000 various Gods, and I'm never quite sure which one works. I guess you could pick one randomly, but then you're denying 2999 others. Is that blasphemy? I know the COE, and I guess the Catholics believe in blasphemy but what about the others? Anyaways, I went for a run instead. I guess I'm probably a Pagan at heart, because that seemed to work, at least it gave me an idea. Start again.

This is when it gets interesting. Here begineth the third submission. The margins are still wrong, but I have several characters in the book. One is called Janine (sassy, sarcastic and loved by all, but no one will tell her 😂) Another character, Mohammed (not the dead prophet) he's a bit gormless (not the prophet the character). The template decided to change both names to 'I'. Not throughout the whole book, just randomly. i.e. another character says. "I'm going to get Janine back." This became, "I'm going to get I back,"

After a zillion YouTube videos on how to format a manuscript, posing the question on Amazon KDP community, because I began to think I was a bit dumb, I was no further and getting nowhere. So, I went for another run 😂

It was on this freezing, wet, cold run that I decided to start again, again. I went through the whole document, took out all the "I's" and put in the original names. I discounted the Amazon margin guidelines and super duper hi-tec methods. I took a ruler, a paperback from my bookshelf which had the same page count as my book, and used the ancient method of measuring. 😂

Eurika! the margins are great, there are no more people called "I" and the paragraph indents are spot on, so from ebook to paperback in three weeks. Of course by the time I finish my next book I will have forgotten all about this adventure and probably repeat every step. Oh the joys of getting old 😂

Happy Trails, folks x