Musings & Thoughts for Monday, July 3, 2023, or: Weekend Update, Part the Fourth

It’s midday/early afternoon in Lithia, Florida, on Monday, July 3, 2023. It’s a steamy – and not in a good way ­– summer day here in the Tampa Bay area: the temperature outside is 90°F/32°C under mostly sunny conditions, although the heat index is higher – 96°F/36°C. A true scorcher of a day, if you ask me, and unless I have a pressing need to take something out to the trash can, I’m not venturing beyond the front door of this house.

Well, this morning I finished the seemingly never-ending process of making corrections to both the Kindle and paperback editions of Reunion: A Story. I woke up way too early again (4 AM!!) and when I saw that Amazon had emailed me to let me know the revisions I’d made yesterday went “live” sometime after I went to bed last night, I decided to check them out in the Kindle edition.

Well, most of the edits, revisions, and adjustments apparently took, but there were some that, for some reason, did not. Nothing major, mind you – just some formatting bloopers that casual readers would not notice (or, if they did notice, they would not care). But…to me, the errors were noticeable, and I do know that some readers do care about a book’s aesthetics, so I went to Kindle Create, opened the relevant file, made corrections (for the billionth time, or so it seems), and uploaded them to Kindle Direct Publishing.

It takes Amazon (owners of Kindle Direct Publishing) between six and 12 hours to update existing books, although I’ve been lucky a few times and received “Your paperback has been published!” emails from KDP in as little as two hours after submitting revisions. It’s been several hours since I sent my (hopefully) last batch of revisions, so I guess the timeline depends on what hour of the day authors submit revisions to Amazon.

In case you’re wondering what these notification emails look like, well, I just received one regarding the e-book version of Reunion: A Story.  

Hello,

Congratulations, your book “Reunion: A Story” is now live and available for purchase in the Kindle Store and enrolled in KDP Select! If you republished your book, your changes will be published based on these timelines.

We hope you enjoy the benefits of KDP Select. In addition to your KDP royalties, you’ll earn a share of the monthly global fund from Kindle Unlimited for each page a customer reads in your book for the first time. Plus, you can use the book promotion tools, including Kindle Countdown Deals, time-bound promotional discounting on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk, or a Free Book Promotion.

Here are additional resources to help you promote your book and reach more readers:

Learn about the merchandising programs we offer, including ten ways to market your book.

Create an Author Page through Amazon Author Central so readers can get information about you and your work. You can join Amazon Author from here. Already have an Author Page? Make sure you claim all of your books, including this one. When you add your books, they become eligible for our monthly KDP Select All-Stars bonus program.

Kind regards,

The Kindle Direct Publishing Team

I won’t see any changes on the Kindle version until either late tonight or early tomorrow. It takes a while – again, the timing varies depending on a wide range of variables – for revisions to appear in the e-book edition, usually, some 24-48 hours, though on a few occasions, they’ve appeared sooner than that.

Oh, I forgot to tell you, but yesterday I received a “late birthday present from me to me” package with a direct-from-Hasbro Pulse order! (No going through a middleman like Amazon….at least not for this particular item.) My order of a Star Wars The Black Series – Return of the Jedi 40^th Anniversary set with “Kenner” branded figures of Anakin Skywalker, Yoda, and Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi as Force Spirits arrived early yesterday morning.

I have not taken any pictures of the boxed set yet, but when I do – and if they come out well – I will share them on A Certain Point of View, Too.

As for the rest of this hot, muggy, and exhausting Monday?

I was going to work on Reunion: Coda today, but my 4 AM wakeup and the continuing hassles with the revisions to Reunion make it next to impossible for me to do so. I’m tired, cranky, and don’t feel up to it, so I think I’ll just take the rest of the day off. It’s a four-day holiday weekend anyway, and I didn’t rest much yesterday, so…

 Well, that’s about it for the day before the Fourth of July, so I’ll close for now. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.