Ding... Ding... Round 3!

OK - so I'm thick and can't read FAQs ><

My distributor for both print and eBooks are a subsidiary company with the biggest book distributors in the world - Ingrams. So they have a number of FAQs on their online POD business procedures including a very impressive one about their distribution partners such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Book Depository and other bookstore luminaries around the world.

Except they neglect to tell you that these are distribution partners for print publications only - there's a different list for eBook ones, some of which are on the print list as well, but NOT Amazon, Barnes & Noble and... You get the picture? So there I was blissfully checking on Amazon every day and wondering why Milele wasn't showing up as an eBook purchase, because I'd been told it'd take between 3 - 8 weeks to get through on the databases.

I did smell a rat but I wasn't asking the right questions. I just had a wee giggle at the irony of my print book getting on Amazon in under 48 hours, but the digital one was taking in excess of 4 weeks... Eventually I pointed this out to my account rep - yesterday in fact, which is why I came back to a gobsmacking time bomb in my inbox last night, with the vital info that in fact Amazon weren't a distribution partner for their eBooks at all and the rosy-hued scales dropped off with a mighty clang.

Boy did I feel a right 'nana!

Anyway, long story short I uploaded everything into the wee small hours and went to bed with it still unpublished because I couldn't get hold of my bank IBAN details until this morning (well actually I could have as the info was there, but by that time my brain couldn't cope with the online banking interface a nano-second longer...). Have just come back out of my little cyber tunnel and it's all loading onto the Amazon mainframe as I type, so the piece of the jigsaw nightmare that is self-publishing is quietly burrowing it's way onto the interweb and should be all systems go within a few hours.

Now all I have to do is flog a few more copies and promote, promote, promote... I feel quite kamikaze so watch this space!