Typos, Glitches, and Postal Fails: The Unexpected Quirks of Publishing a Book
At this point in my authoring career, I’ve published 10 full-length novels, 1 novella, 1 short story, and now, an anthology. While I’ve ironed out most of the issues I ran into early on, there are still so many things that can go awry that simply aren’t in my control. Glitches, shipping issues, and just plain bad customer service—I’ve run into them all.
But sometimes, something so weird occurs that I can’t help but laugh about it. Some of these were my fault (like the author bio one below), but others can only be attributed to cosmic forces dead-set on throwing a wrench into the gears. I have no better explanation for them.
The amazing typo (Hunted)
When I first uncovered this little issue, I was horrified, but now I just laugh at it. It was a dumb error on my part, and one I didn’t catch until almost 6 months after I published Hunted. (If you are one of the first 30 or so people who bought a copy of that book, you’ll see the typo.)
The backstory: I originally wrote my author bio in first-person, but converted it to third for publication. Somewhere during that process, I missed a key word…
Part of my author bio was supposed to read, “She lives with her husband, their cat…”
What was published read, “She lives with my husband, their cat…” Oops. 😂
It’s proof that no matter how many times I read something (along with my ARC readers, editor, husband, and others) there’s still a chance something goofy will slip through the editing cracks.
Schrödinger’s book (Guardian)
Most authors know this, but readers usually don’t: When a book is set up for preorder on Amazon, Goodreads automatically imports that info onto their site (Goodreads is owned by Amazon.)
When I uploaded Guardian for preorder in 2023, everything went fine on the retailer side. The paperback and hardcovers appeared on Goodreads as expected, but when I went in to connect the ebook to them, Goodreads claimed the ASIN (Amazon’s unique product identification code) was marked as “deleted”, so it wasn’t visible to anyone except me, as the author.
Guardian was both alive and dead in the Goodreads system.
I double-checked the listing on Amazon, and found no errors there. Hmm…
Thankfully, Goodreads has a feature where you can contact one of their librarians for help (although it’s kind of buried in the settings/profile somewhere and I always have to click around a bit to find it again.) I contacted them, explained the issue, and provided screenshots. They were able to fix the record on their end, and the ebook was active again. Here’s their response:
I’ve had to contact the Goodreads librarians a number of times over the years, and they’ve always been helpful. It just takes a bit of time for some issues to be remedied. This particular issue with Guardian was unique, but they were still able to correct in within a couple days.
The glitch in the Matrix (Serpentus)
Serpentus was my 8th publication, so by the time I set everything up in KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), I was used to their system and their processes. Everything went pretty smoothly leading up to release day, and the release itself was fine. The issue with this book cropped up a few months later when I tried to update the paperback to include a page of review quotes at the front. (Front matter updates like this are not unusual in the publishing world.)
Everything was fine until I tried to publish the update. KDP started throwing a strange error, stating I couldn’t update the files prior to the book’s publication—but the book had been out for months by that point. Trying to adjust the publication date wouldn’t work, since it was grayed out (for being in the past), and the paperback update found itself in an endless loop of errors.
After a few hours of working with KDP customer support, which back then, was still staffed by actual humans, I was told it was a problem with their system. The person I was speaking to over the phone jokingly said it was a “glitch in the Matrix.” I appreciated that one.
A few days later, they had it sorted out and I was able to push through the updates. (I still get a pseudo-error message 2 years later if I make any updates to the paperback, but it doesn’t get stuck and I can save without calling customer support. Which is good, because I dread dealing with the AI-driven nonsense they use now.)
Note: I failed to save any screenshots from this particular glitch, and I don’t want to risk a test update in case it decides to rear its ugly head again.
Together is an Empty Parcel (Together is a Distant Star)
Thanks to G.J. Terral for the title of this one 😂
One of the things authors anticipate the most when a book is scheduled for release is the arrival of their author copies. It’s the first time we get to see our books for the first time, and no matter how many I publish, the excitement never fades. And Together is a Distant Star was such an amazing collaborative project that I was more excited than usual.
So imagine the crushing disappointment when I received a delivery notification, only to go to my mail box, where I found an obviously empty box that was supposed to contain 6 books. Even better, that box was marked with a sticker from the US Postal Service stating the contents were “found loose in mail. Rewrapped in Denver.” Since the box was empty when it reached me, they just retaped the box and delivered it that way. I don’t know what happened to the books, but I suspect someone kept them.
This one is less funny than the others, but it’s the first time I’ve run into a completely missing shipment since I started ordering author copies. I had to contact the printer and submit a ticket (at the time of this writing, I’ve received confirmation that they’ll replace my order, but it won’t arrive for another week or so.) I also filed a complaint with USPS, since I’m pretty sure this was 100% their fault, but I doubt anything will come of it.
While I’ll probably never know where those 6 books ended up, it’s nice to know that someone out there thought the anthology was worth stealing. I hope they enjoy reading it.