Kindle Launch and Tales of a Book Publisher

I stayed up late last night, working on our catalogue that has to be mailed to stores in January for Spring. I had so many resizing issues with it after working on it all day. I stayed up until 2 a.m., mainly because I was too tired to go to bed. This morning I want to get back to work on it, but I’m exhausted.

Plus my kindle version of my book Friends With (Social Security) Benefits released today, and I have a lot of stuff to get done for the paperback release on Amazon on Tuesday (or whenever Dec 3rd is, I’m too tired to look right now lol), but my main focus has been on getting the catalogue finished to get to print in time so that we can get proofs of it and still have time to order the copies and get them mailed to the stores. This SHOULD be mailed out in December, but it will be January unless some sort of many-kind-of magic happen lol. Especially with Canada Post on strike.

So, I guess I will just have to listen to Doris Day: “Whatever will be, will be.” Or Del, the main character of my book whose motto is “So be it!”

I had so much fun writing this book. It was like a break from the real world of stress and news and politics and laundry and grocery shopping. I hope reading it will be the same kind of vacation from real life for the reader.

I think I should rename my diary to “Tales of a Struggling Publishing Business” lol. Sometimes there are some pretty hilarious behind-the-scenes stuff that happens, happy accidents, horrible mistakes, delays, headaches and frustrations, and joy, and excitement, and chaos. I find this life so interesting (I always have) so I started a Sims 4 machinima series on my Youtube channel (My Modern Office Girl youtube channel) and planned to chronicle the ups and downs in a sitcom style series. I have four episodes done so far but it is a lot of work, and the actual publishing work is far less glamorous than most people imagine, I think, and I’ve been so busy I haven’t even had time to even think about the sims or making youtube videos. Other than the promo video for this book which I’ve posted on my channel.

But it’s a beautiful sunny Saturday, I’ve got my coffee (which tasted like dishwasher at first because I’d forgotten to put Stevia in it), my cat is curled up in the armchair beside mine, all is right with the world. If I can just keep my mind off that stupid catalogue for the weekend (I may have forgotten to mention that I absolutely “strongly dislike” doing catalogues!!! I’ve managed to get out of it for the past few years but now I have to do it. Delays will partially be caused by the postal strike, so all other publishers are probably annoyed as well.

We also keep discussing if it’s time to take on more authors. It really is a tough decision. So, we’re basically seeing how my book of Friends With (Social Security) Benefits does. If that sells well enough so that there is money in the budget for marketing for new authors, then perhaps we will. Everything changes almost on a daily basis, which is probably why a lot of people that work in publishing get burned out. It’s probably why when you contact an editor at a publishing house, in a few months or a few years, they will be replaced and moved on to either start an agency or something. Especially for new editors or assistant editors. Some stay in publishing, even in the same company for years. The longest I lasted at a large publishing house was 5 years, and it did get me to the verge of a nervous breakdown. That had totally turned me off of publishing completely for a while. (As did my sister, who also worked at the same publisher and she stayed up until just last year but I cannot even mention the word “book” to her lol).

Wow, look at the time! It’s already 11:00 and I have a business meeting at noon! Ugh! Do I really want to take on more of a workload by accepting other authors?? I am still debating.