On Writing & Storytelling: Is There an End to the ‘Constant Revisions on Kindle Direct Publishing’ Saga? I Hope So!*

* Also counts as Thoughts & Musings for Wednesday, July 5, 2023, or A Scorching Hump Day – and NOT in a Good Way!

The Long Hot Summer Continues

Hi, there. It’s late morning on Wednesday, July 5, 2023, here in Lithia, Florida. It’s a hot summer day in the Tampa Bay area; noon – as I begin this post, anyway – is still over two hours away, and it’s already 86°F/30°C under sunny conditions. The forecast high for this midweek (or “hump”) day is 96°F/35°C, with a heat index of 110°F/43°. It’s so hot, in fact, that the National Weather Service has issued a heat warning effective till 7 PM. Not. Fun. At. All.

I had hoped that there would be some precipitation – rain showers, not thunderstorms! – in the early afternoon hours to cool things down so I could at least take a brief walk outside. Not a chance. The forecast for the area not only includes a heat warning that advises folks to wear shorts and stay indoors as long as they can, but no rain or storm activity is expected at any time during the day.

My Not-So-Glorious Fourth

As for my Fourth of July – how did it go?

Well, it wasn’t all that Glorious or relaxing. I wanted to take the day off to have some R&R. After all, I thought that Monday’s batch of edits and revisions to Reunion: A Story had “taken” and I would not have to worry about them on Independence Day. I’d spent enough time fixing typos and making sure that previous revisions I’d made had not, somehow, reversed themselves, and I thought, honestly, that I was done.

Alas, no.

See, even though I knew that Monday’s revisions would not start appearing on the Kindle e-book until, at the earliest, today, I figured that the ones I made over what would have been the “regular” weekend (Friday night through Sunday night) would be visible by yesterday afternoon, depending on what time Amazon’s system listed them as Live. So, I turned on my seldom-used Kindle Fire tablet (one of the last electronic devices I bought when I still lived in Miami) and checked Reunion there.

Oof.

Not only was the copyright page all messy – I “revised” that during one of my “4 AM Wake Up Days,” so I wasn’t exactly in the best shape to create that particular section of the Front Matter area – but one revision that I’d made in March (at the behest of my former college journalism prof, Peter C. Townsend) had somehow reverted to its 1998 version.  And because that revision was made to reflect certain aspects of New York City architecture/geography, I could not let that blooper stand.

(Trust me. If I didn’t believe that there’s a huge difference between the view from a third-floor apartment in midtown Manhattan and a 33rd-floor apartment, I wouldn’t have worried about that one.)

So, yep, yet again, I had to fix something I thought I had replaced a third of a year ago – which means that any copy of Reunion: A Story printed between yesterday and Friday might not have the latest revisions between the covers. (Kindle edition readers are lucky; they don’t have to worry about having to buy different editions of Reunion, especially if they set their app to receive automatic updates.)

 Action This Day

The revisions I uploaded to Kindle Direct Publishing yesterday afternoon did not go live until 2:56 AM today, which is when I received the following email from the company:

Congratulations, your paperback, “Reunion: A Story,” is published on Amazon. If you republished your book with updates, your changes are now live.

What’s next:

• Availability. It takes up to 3 days for Amazon.com and up to 5 days for other marketplaces to show as in stock.
• Linking. The detail pages of your print book and eBook should link within 48 hours, but it can take up to 5 days. See requirements for linking.
• Product description. It can take 24-48 hours to appear on the detail page.
• Look Inside the Book. This feature will be available in 9-10 business days.
• Book Details. Changes to contributor, series name, series number, page count, description, keywords, and browse categories take up to 72 hours to appear.

As is always the case with updates to existing titles, the e-book “fixes” go live well before the ones for the print edition. As a result, changes made to the text or illustrations (if the book contains any) appear in the Kindle edition (depending on how much KDP has going on in its system when revisions are made and uploaded to its server) within 24-36 hours.

For print editions (hardcover and paperback), the process is slower. I know this because when I began this long, protracted, and oft-frustrating project of revising Reunion for both quality and continuity with its follow-up book (Reunion: Coda) in March, I ordered a copy of the paperback edition, thinking I’d get the new, revised version.

Um. No. instead, I received the flawed, problematic 2018 edition. Of course, I kept it – I’d be a fool to not keep the $2.99 I’d get in royalties (we writers do not get the full manufacturer’s suggested retail price – only a portion of it) – but I was not thrilled about all the mistakes in its 40-plus pages. I waited a few more days (especially after my friend and fellow author, Thomas Wikman, told me he had ordered a copy of the March edition of Reunion, and the same thing happened to him! Sorry, Thomas!)

Thus, even though I’d like to get a copy of the new edition – I have it on Kindle, too, but I still prefer reading traditional printed books – I’m going to wait till at least Friday before I order one.

So…what about today? Will I work on Reunion: Coda, or will I take part of this scorching July Wednesday off to rest my weary bones (and eyes, and muscles, and brain!) to make up for yesterday’s unexpected “working holiday.”

I don’t know. I still need to take a shower, shave, change into clean clothing, and see how I feel physically and mentally before I can make that decision.

I want to. Badly. Trust me on this. I want to finish the first draft soon so I can go into the Revisions and Editing phase, then go on to the “self-publishing” stage of the process.

But, if past experience has taught me anything, anything at all, it’s this:

I am not at my best if I am tired, hungry, and/or depressed. Or to be frank, if I am rushing just for the sake of “getting the book out there” before X Day.

We’ll have to see what happens between the time I publish this post on WordPress and when I finish the shower/shaving/getting dressed routine. (I also need to eat lunch and read for a while, so if I do decide to work today, I won’t start till around 2 PM Eastern Daylight Time.)

Before I go, though, I’d like to remind Kindle fans that:

• If you already have the original Reunion in your library, updates are now trickling into the system. The latest ones should be appearing between later today and Friday morning
• From now till July 10, the Kindle edition will be available in the U.S. for $1.99. If you already have a copy, Amazon still lets you buy Reunion as an e-book for friends or groups. So, if you have friends or relatives who like e-books and might enjoy Reunion, you can go to your Amazon account and see how to do that from the book’s order page

Well, I don’t have much else to say, so I’ll wrap up this epistle here. Until next time, Dear Reader, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the (hopefully) not-so-scorching side of things.