Axtara Paperback Not Yet Available Due to Amazon Issues · 7:28pm Jan 26th, 2021
Hey readers! Max here with a quick update. I know I anticipated the paperback for Axtara – Banking and Finance being available today, but alas, it is not. Why? Well … therein lies a bit of a story. Mostly because once again, Amazon went cheap, and that’s created problems.
See, Amazon has a bunch of tools you need to satisfy in order to print a book. Straightforward enough … save that one of them is, well … a little broken. To be specific, their cover program.
See, Amazon provides a template for you to build a cover to. You make it a layer, stick everything within the lines of “everything past here will be cut” and call it good.
Except you don’t. Their program is a little … buggy. Because while it asks for stuff to extend past that trim edge of that template, actually doing so will often result in the program you upload the final cover to resizing your image if it has. Which then means that the cover image may be well inside the trim lines and you have a problem.
Basically? The first time I got the cover past Amazon’s program, I “cheated” and tricked it by doing some manual transforms combined with expanded background layers as a border. The result was the cover I got on the print proof, which looked fantastic.
But apparently, in trying to get that approved for publication, someone over at Amazon noticed that their program was being tricked and rejected it. Hence why it didn’t go up this morning, even though, as I’ll point out again, it worked and the print proof looked great (in fact, a quick Google showed a number of other authors use the same “border trick” to beat Amazon’s cover program, so this is a common thing).
I resubmitted it (and lodged a stern complaint with KDP via e-mail about the shoddiness of their cover program and its resizing issues. With luck, it’ll go through, Axtara will be in flight, if not by the end of the day, then sometime tomorrow.
Ouch that sounds like a royal pain. I've done those kinds of setups myself manually then uploading a cover pdf to a printer. I can only imagine the kinds of poor programming decisions going in that little 'tool.'
Remind me to NOT use Amazon for when I want to make a print of my own story when I get it done.
I just hope that there's no minimum order for it when I get it ready to go, as I only want the one copy for myself..
Ouch. Good luck in the appeal.
5442435
Yeah, it's just shoddy. Thankfully it appears I've managed to trick it once again, but it is certainly an annoyance!
5442452
Depends on whether or not you want to sell it to others, really. The nice thing about Amazon is it is Print-on-demand. No big stock necessary! Order what you need, when you need it!
5442628
Looks like the trick worked again! It's still annoying, however.
5442452
If you are looking to print a copy just for yourself or you and a small number of others and not sell it then you might try looking at lulu.com
Edit: sorry i meant not sell it to the public at large
5442697
Glad it seems to have gone through.
At least the rest of the process seems straightforward (I’m assuming). I did a small vanity press printing of a book by one of my professors in collage and had to go through buying a small batch of ISBN numbers, setup the manuscript and create the cover in inDesign, then work with the on demand printer myself. Then also file the copyright with the LOC.
Though funnily enough the hardest part of all of that was getting the ISBN’s, that website was a mess (but who’s expect anything else from a gov run site
)
5442697 Well, I'm NOT really confident enough to do THAT yet.
Maybe once the story is finally up here, and I see if enough people would want a copy or not.
Really?
That IS a nice option, so I'll definitely keep it in mind!
5442816 Yeah, that's ALSO an option, I hope, but given what they did to iisaw (I think it was) when someone ratted him out to them that his books were composed of copyrighted material (MLP), they were nervous about a lawsuit or C&D order from Hasbro, so they not only deleted all his books, but his whole account.
That's kinda why HE'S been looking for an alternative publisher, too.
5442822
Yeah i guess that is always an issue. The other printers I’ve worked with also had you sign a form about having permissions to publish the work.
5442826 Yep.
And I think that's just par for the course on their parts to avoid bad legal entanglements.
Not sure how all that works, really.
Hey, Viking?
Amazon's publishing service is called "CreateSpace", right?
I'm going to check it out and see if it's something that I can use.
Barring that, could you send me a link to the thing on Amazon that you use for your books?
Thanks in advance.
EDIT: Also, are you in the US, or UK?
'Cause the Amazon page that I'm looking at seems to be the one for Amazon.co.uk.
I mean, I do have an account with that one, but I was just curious.
EDIT, Part Two: Well, I thought I did, anyway.
Need to fix that post-haste!
5442821
I have to give credit where credit is due: Acquiring an ISBN was so painless it was effortless. As in it was literally "click this button if you need and ISBN. Okay, here is your ISBN. Copy-paste it. All is well."
5442822
Ooooh. You're talking fanfiction. No, this is not what you would do for that. Printing fanfiction in dead-tree form is an entirely different beast, and yes, if you attempt to list fanfiction on Amazon, they WILL hammer you (as it's basically like trying to sell Harry Potter fanfiction through Tor and get it listed in bookstores. You're going to get wrecked0.
Do not attempt to sell your fanfiction via indie-print channels.
If you want to print runs of fanfiction, you're going to be looking at what's closer to a vanity press (save for the publication bit). You're not going to be acquiring an ISBN or looking at library sales, or bookstore royalties. You're looking at hiring a printer to print you a very select not for commercial sale product. Which is very different from what Amazon and other indie-publication houses provide.
Now, to answer your later questions (which again, you won't be able to use for products that aren't original material): Createspace was a separate Indie-pub that was acquired by Amazon a few years ago. Amazon's print services are run through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) however, this is not where you want to go for fanfiction. KDP is for authors looking to sell original fiction and make royalty at it, not for non-commercial runs of fanfic. I cannot stress that enough. I don't have any resources for printing fanfiction. Everything I do with regards to publication and writing for profit is, well, writing for publication and profit, not fanfiction.
5442872 Yeah, I am.
I want to find a place where I can have a single PERSONAL copy printed off, 'cause as I said, I'm... NOT exactly confident enough to go beyond that at this point in time.
Yeah, no. Don't want THAT to happen.
Hasbro's legal eagles would murder me on that.
And I won't, trust me.
Again, thank you for warning me about this.
I guess I'll look at a company like Lulu or Blurt, or something.
Quite honestly, I'm nowhere NEAR ready for even submitting my story yet (as it ISN'T anywhere NEAR done yet, as I'm still working on the Prologue and first chapters at this point), so I'm not worried about it yet; I'm juts weighing my options.
5442875
Yeah, Amazon and KDP are not for that. When you put your book on KDP, it's going to bookstores and up for libraries to order. It's a publisher. You're looking for something like ... Well, I don't actually know any names off the top of my head, but basically a print shop with Print-on-Demand services. Some college bookstores have the machines for it, like the one near where I live (you go pay like $30 with the files and USB all formatted properly and boom, they print it for you).
5442879 Good to know.
*snorts* Just my luck.
The closest one of those to me is Lindenwood University in St. Charles, MO (the town I currently live in, Wentzville, ISN'T a college town), which is about a half-hour drive from me.
I think there MIGHT be a print shop that does that kind of thing here in town.
Just have to do a bit of looking when I'm ready to have it done.
Which, as I said, isn't really anytime soon.
I just want to be able to find a place to do it when I finally DO get ready to do so.
5442902
It's the age of the internet. Print-on-Demand shouldn't be too hard to find for a single copy anymore. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
5442903 True, on the first two counts, and I hope so.
Heh, like I said, though, I have to get the thing completely written first!