Tag: Sweek

The KDP Previewer Hates My Paperback, Part 1.

The self-publishing scene has changed dramatically in the past couple of years. It’s not so easy anymore to upload a file for free without having to jump through fiery hoops that, even when you do jump and get burned, you still don’t get in. More and more, artificial intelligence runs the show, and less and less of anything is done by human beings.

That means there’s no room to step to the left or the right (as in getting around The Previewer) for paperbacks which is why, as I’ve said, even though I do everything KDP tells me, the mighty and powerful Previewer still refuses my paperback manuscript.

Sweek

Since I’d said I might go with Sweek after my episodes with the dastardly KDP Previewer, I thought I’d do an update. My approach was to first try the eBook version before attempting to upload my novel manuscript in order to sell the printed paperback, which was my point for going to Sweek—to avoid Amazon.

I found out they’re based in Sweden, which could explain the name. I don’t like dealing in Euros and mm’s instead of dollars and inches, though I was willing to give that a shot. But I had to choose from book sizes in mm’s which didn’t convert to 5 x 8 inches. The closest in mm was to 6 x 9, so I reformatted the eBook version of my novel and a cover to fit into it.

Play It Again, Sam

But, as it stands, I don’t think so. I had a terrible time uploading files to Sweek and felt the site was stilted and as if I were in the dark throughout the process. Also, I had to do everything twice before it would “take” for some strange reason. The uploading platform felt very stiff to me, and I kept not knowing if things were going through or not. I wrote to a contact person but I didn’t hear back.

I then deleted the first try and started all over again. Long story. But, unfortunately, it’s a no-go with Sweek. The site is user-unfriendly, at least for me. No easy way to undo anything, and I always felt as if the machine knew something I didn’t (which was true). In the Sweek store it finally showed the title of my book, the price in Euros, and the description, but no cover. After two tries and a lot of lost time, I gave up.

A Long Day Can Feel Like A Month

On my publishing attempt of my eBook on Sweek (I wanted to try it before trying a paperback), it showed my publication date as May 10 (it’s currently October) and the second try was June 10 (well, that day did feel like a month, but…). I finally gave up, though my book is still in there, though the cover still wasn’t showing in the store on last check.

I guess it’s different for everybody. A lot of people must like Sweek; it’s very popular, and if you have that experience, please let me know in the comments. But I’m still operating under the craziness I encountered which I wrote about in my article not long ago entitled The KDP Previewer Hates My Paperback, and don’t have a lot of patience for shenanigans.

Selz

My next endeavor to sell eBooks from my website without KDP will be to try Selz, though they don’t print paperbacks, which Sweek does, though after my eBook experience with them, the thought of pursuing a paperback with Sweek will give me nightmares.

Selz is based in Australia. (I wonder if there are any US platforms offering a way around the beasts. Let me know in the comments, please, if you’re aware of any.) Selz is a platform for businesses that offers a way, similar to Sweek, to sell from the business’s own website. Unlike Sweek, Selz doesn’t produce paperback books, but does offer a widget or other options to sell either physical items (which for me will be my paperback), and digital (my eBook). I’ll report back on Selz after I put myself through it.

KDP Still Hates My Paperback

I have since attempted every which way but loose to upload further (edited just for them) PDF files of my paperback manuscript to KDP (which were somehow perfectly fine when I went through CreateSpace two years ago). I readjusted my margins several times to suit KDP. It still won’t accept it.

Then it keeps saying something about they removed some kind of unprintable markup. I wanted to say, “Well if you removed it then what’s the problem?’’ I don’t know what it could be. Lint? What’s an unprintable markup? No explanation. And if the Previewer says it fixed it, then what’s the freaking problem.

It’s beyond human comprehension why my simply formatted novel is ding-ed with countless “errors” by KDP and when I fix them, it acts as if I never did a thing and rejects it all over again. I can almost see its tongue wagging at me as it watches me try over and over and then it rejects the MS yet again and keeps that Approval button grayed out so I can’t bypass it. (see The KDP Previewer Hates My Paperback).

Head(er)s Up

Then I almost capitulated to using the KDP interior template which gives me hives to think about, being locked into something like that, especially from Amazon, but halfway through I said, “No, I can’t do it. Too cookie cutter. Too AI.’’

For example, the headers they put in are author’s name on one side and title on the other, alternating pages, odd and even. But in my manuscript, I did book title on the even pages and chapter title on the odd pages, which of course have to be changed from one chapter to the next and are a real pain to do when you’re setting the book up, and I worked hard to get them just right in my manuscript without the page numbers getting all screwy, but it’s a detail that I prefer (and appreciate in books I read), and am not willing to change it for the KDP Previewer Machine, especially since it won’t approve it afterwards, anyway!

In my frenzy, it also had occurred to me to remove all the headers altogether, but that also would be submitting to the beehive, and I refuse to do it, unless, I get to the point of absolutely no choice, in which case I might just leave it as a PDF, which I’m thinking of doing anyway, cover and all. Why not? Lots of people go that route and it seems just fine with me, a lot less complicated.

My $100 Cover Creator Paperback

So my plan now is to leave my e-book on KDP (I did have to cow-tow to their Cover Creator, as The Previewer lied and said there weren’t enough pixels when the cover I uploaded has more pixels than it requires).

And, as I think I mentioned in Part 1, the KDP Cover Creator now has much more limited choices (fonts, styles, everything) than two years ago, but since it accepted the eBook manuscript, and there are no header or footer issues in an e-book, I went ahead with it, so I can continue to sell the eBook there with the cover I managed to complete on their Cover Creator, which isn’t what I wanted but will have to do if I’m to have an eBook version out there somewhere, until I come up with a better way.

While my eBook is available, my paperback remains unpublished at Amazon, except its title is still there, but with only the old, very first (terrible) cover I made with their Cover Creator. For some reason none of the several covers I’ve experimented with over the past two years, including the most recent, “took” in their AI’s memory. And the original cover remains on Amazon (different from the eBook cover).

But even funnier is that my paperback is on sale for $106.16. Think I’m kidding? Here’s the link: The Archangel of Hamilton Beach. (Clicking on the Kindle box will take you to the current eBook with its Cover Creator cover).

My frustration is that if I had left it at CreateSpace until the time was completely up, I could have made my changes to the interior and cover and re-uploaded while still in CreateSpace and have been done with it, and when KDP switched them over, it would all already be intact. Take this as a warning, which is why I’m writing this. I foolishly made the switch over to KDP at their nudging, not knowing what dangers awaited me. If you have books in CreateSpace, leave them there until you have no choice.

Bad Vibes

I’ll wrap up with an excerpt from an article I found written by a very frustrated artist/writer who did, in her word, a rant about her experience. These lines below are from a very long account she gives about her bad experience with her printed book of artwork with Ingram Spark. This part of her rant (below) hit home with me with what I’ve been feeling about the direction this whole self-publishing thing has taken in just a couple of years, and that it’s getting worse.

Bad IngramSpark Review, I Lost Thousands, Audra Auclair, under “Update 3”:

I have realized that I have a distaste for the book industry. I get some bad vibes from it. I don’t like how publishers treat their writers/illustrators, I don’t like how they draw out payments, they don’t let a lot of writers choose the covers they want, I don’t like how printers work and that could all just be my experiences but I don’t like it.

Short and sweet, right to the point of what I’ve been trying to say. I guess she lost a lot of money and it took 90 days for her to get paid by Ingram Spark. Time for us to wake up from the self-publishing fantasy of “ain’t life grand”, and start looking at what’s really going on.

I Give!

After a lot of research, I finally decided to go with Steuben Press, and pay for some paperbacks to be printed to have as promo and to give out to my writing students and other locals; and I’ll focus on selling the eBook version online.

At least that way I won’t have to wrestle with some unmoving, stuck-on-stupid machine for a well-formatted paperback, or have to pay large amounts of money to “vanity presses”, and I can get the paperbacks the way I like them and maybe even speak to a real, live human being in the process who actually cares about how the book turns out.

Book Ends or Books End? (Except Digital)

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, but in a word, it’s just no fun anymore. Too many gatekeepers, most of them not human. The squeeze is on. For eBooks, it’s factory time; for paperbacks, it’s bye-bye.

I’m finding in my research that the whole self-publishing industry has gotten much less user-friendly, in fact, more like user-antagonistic in the extreme. I think the traditional publishing giants of the past have joined heads and it’s revenge of the nerds all over again. Only these nerds aren’t cute or funny, they’re treacherous.

While eBooks are going strong (until the gatekeepers change the tune to which we dance), as I said in my previous post The KDP Previewer Hates My Paperback (Part 1), I strongly believe all this “Let’s-make-it-as-difficult-as-possible-to-publish-a-paperback” (especially one from outside the Cookie Cutter) is in line with the push to discontinue the production of paperback books (and hardcover) altogether.

Maybe they’re misguided enough to think they’re saving trees? But trees are the easiest resource to renew (despite all the hype). Just plant new ones. But books can’t be replanted. They’ll just disappear, so all that’s left will be the digital in our kids’ future. Hope the lights don’t go out.