Publishing Problems

Since I first started doing my own publishing, I've learned a lot and gotten much better at it, so I rarely have problems anymore. However, formatting and publishing Hurting Hero turned out to be more challenging than any I've ever done.  I tried everything I knew to do, and nothing helped. I even began uploading a chapter at a time to see if I could pinpoint where the trouble began. It started in Chapter Nine, but I kept getting the message from KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), "Your manuscript cannot be uploaded." And it didn't tell me what was wrong.

My husband told me to call them. The last few times I've called any part of Amazon, it has been hard to get the help I needed, so I had my doubts, but since I had done my best to rectify the problem to no avail, I called KDP. The representative checked and said it was a problem with the drop-down capitals, and he would send me an email on how to fix it.

About ten minutes later the email showed up. I followed the instructions exactly, deleting all my drop-down capital letters at the beginning of each chapter and redoing them, making sure my fonts were on the normal tab. Apparently, this was where the problem came from. When I tried uploading the manuscript again, it still didn't go.

I happened to notice that my chapter titles were also on the heading tab instead of normal, so I deleted and retyped all of them. Finally, KDP accepted the manuscript, and Hurting Hero was ready to publish on June 12. If you read my recent blogs, you know about Amazon's punishment for not having a book on preorder ready by the promised date. That's why it's good to upload the book before the last minute, in case problems arise. Thankfully, this one is solved, and I hope there won't be another. Yet, with each problem, I learn something new and know more about how to troubleshoot in the future.

Link to Hurting Hero

____________________________