Ladies and gentlemen, let the pizza eating commence! CLAIMED is now available in paperback–and a updated edition of ebook is available too!
Ready to get claimed? Click here!
Getting to this point was not exactly easy. Or smooth. As you may notice, today is not August 3, 2018, the previously noted release date from my last post. Nooope, nope. We (as in me) ran into a few (as in a lot) of issues along the way.
We had a death in the family. And that was really bad. It was an ATV accident, so completely unexpected, and a huge loss to the community, as he was very involved with the school district and boy scouts.
Then, early one rainy morning, I was strolling down the steps to my office to start Day Job, when I noticed this strange little….glimmer on the floor. And I said to myself, “Why is there a huge string of easter grass on the floor? How weird. The Rowdy Boys are at it again.” And noooooope, not easter grass: it was the edge of a massive puddle of water on the basement floor, stretching from the bottom of the stairs, into the furnace room, and enough random standing water on the floor to get my ankles wet. My lumpy, grumpy, ankles.
Oh. Crap.
So, I drag The Hubs downstairs and he just looked really confused. Younger Son comes bopping down the stairs and he’s like, what do you mean there’s water in the basement, Momma, where’s it coming from?
“The 47 days of rain we’ve had.” I said. “Look, don’t walk over here. It’s wet and you’re in your jammies.”
Younger Son has no fear. No fear. He also has the selective hearing on a fifty-five year old man, as demonstrated by the fact he continued down the stairs, made a sharp turn–
And in a tidal wave of water, Younger Son and stuffed cat “Old Kitten” went sailing across the floor and onto the carpet. I was soaked. He was soaked. Old Kitten was soaked.
“We have a funeral to go to,” I said, “And I don’t have a canoe.”
At this point, I was waiting for frogs or locusts to start hurling themselves at the basements windows. But we got through the funeral. The water got cleaned up. Old Kitten survived another swing through the washer/dryer (I swear, this stuffed animal looks like it has the mange). I stayed up to 1:30 in the morning to finish editing Claimed. And now it’s time to publish.
And it’s 1:30am, and my patience is pretty thin.
Of course, the internet wants to fight me. Of course, the ‘Zon doesn’t want to load the book preview pane so I can make sure that it’s publishing a book and not, say, a corrupted pile of garbage. FINE, my tiredness says out loud, I WILL DO THIS IN THE MORNING.
“Hahahahahahahaha,” replies Publishing Plans, my bitter little nemesis. “You think so, don’cha?”
In what became a day long battle, with a mid-day break for The Hubs company picnic and me standing in a pool in my new bathing suit, It All Went Poorly. The short version of the story is, I used two computers, math, and brain power that I wasn’t sure I had after this crap-tastic week. The actual breakdown:
- Upload cover and manuscript
- Wait for preview pane to load
- Cover and manuscript are not the right size and all the margins are messed up
- Resize cover. Resize margins.
- Upload
- Wait for preview pane.
- Cover and manuscript are not the right size and all the margins are messed up
- Stare a really long time at the computer to try and figure out what this means
- Resize the document page print size. Now we’re cooking with fire.
- Upload. Wait for preview pane.
- Eat some pizza.
- Now the book is 608 pages long and the cover size is still wrong.
- Reformat spacing.
- Upload. Wait for preview pane.
- NOW THE INTERIOR SIZE IS CORRECT.
- Cover size is still wrong.
- Grumble a lot.
- Google how to resize pdfs.
- Use file converter to resize pdf.
- Upload. Wait. Preview pane is up.
- THE COVER SIZE IS NOW CORRECT.
- One misspelled word identified in manuscript.
- I don’t actually care anymore.
- Finalize. Price. Publish.
Thank you, Jesus.
Sooooo, there you go. The polished, brand-spanking fabulous CLAIMED is now up and ready for all you hungry readers out there. I hope you love it!! If you read it, consider leaving a review on Amazon or dropping me a line here. I’m terrified of feedback, but it makes me blush and feel happy when people like my work.
Be one of the first to order CLAIMED! Head on over to Amazon and snag a copy here. Note: I have no idea how affiliate links work, so you clicking that link doesn’t benefit me at all. Reading my books, feeding me pizza, and complementing my youthful radiance does.
The rest of August is now CLAIMED month, where I try to maneuver my way through book re-launch and promotions. Also: at some point I decided that it was a good idea to cross-train with Insanity Max 30 and continue running in anticipation for my next race. Needless to say, this morning I’m hobbling around like a) an 85 year old retired coal miner or b) The Hubs.