They Had Me Scared, For a Minute

 Welcome everyone!

For the last few days, I've had swirling around me the dark and panicked question that I think all authors face as they near publication: "Did I do something wrong?" Last Friday, I uploaded my covers and layouts to the printer. In the past, when I uploaded my files, they would be processed and ready to go a few hours later . This time, however, that was not the case.

Saturday and Sunday went by, and my books were still pending processing. That was a little odd, because for the most part, stuff like this handled by machines. Algorithms, software, AI, all that stuff usually takes care of this sort of thing automatically anymore. There's hardly any use for humans, so despite the fact it was the weekend, I figured my files would still upload just fine.

They didn't. By Monday, the files were still not processed. Worse yet, when I checked them, the covers looked all askew, and the pages weren't visible. I started to worry. It was, though, a holiday on Monday - at least in America. The parent company of my printer is based in Canada, but perhaps it was the long weekend that was somehow delaying the finishing touches on my books. I took a deep breath and decided to wait until Tuesday.

Tuesday came. There files were still messed up! Worse yet, my hardback version still had a red X by it indicating it was not processing. I pored over my cover and layout files. Everything looked fine to me. The margins and alignments were correct. The sizes looked correct. I couldn't figure it out.  

I was in very dismal spirits. I wondered if I would have to delay my launch and have the books and covers redone because I missed a small detail somewhere. It was hard enough going through all this the first time. I didn't want to have to do it again. I resolved to call customer service the next afternoon.

I sat down to lunch on Wednesday and pulled out my cellphone to browse the news. Instantly it buzzed alerting me to an email in my author account. Praise be! It was a notification that my paperback was fully processed, and the digital proofs were ready for viewing. Not only that, processing had begun on the hardback.

WHEW! The digital proof of the paperback looked great, and I hope to view the hardback in the next day or so. Even then, I'm not out of the woods. I won't feel 100% confident the quality of the work until I'm holding the physical proofs in my hands. However, things are looking much better today than they did 48 hours ago.

Once both of the digital proofs are available, I can proceed with the cover reveal, title reveal, interiors, and so on. Stay tuned! There are a lot more updates coming over the next couple months.

Peace,

-Troy

P.S. I haven't forgotten about project X. I'm making good progress on it and hope to share more about it in the near future as well. Heh heh heh.