Announcement!

Tales from the Hotel Bentmoore: The Complete Series is now available on Amazon and B&N!! 

For some reason, the cover is not loading on Amazon. And you know what? I'm beginning to resent the way Amazon works.

Amazon uses Kindle Direct Publishing, or KDP, to let authors put their work for sale on Amazon. When an author uploads a piece of writing (novel, novella, short story, whatever) onto KDP, you have to take some time filling out information, clicking boxes, reading the information, etc etc. The final thing you have to do is to check the box that says you agree to their terms of service, and then you hit "publish."

Once you hit "publish," a message pops up to let you know that it will take 24-72 hours for your book to go "live." Then you can access it on your "bookshelf," the place where you can access all your titles to see how they're doing in sales, and make changes if need be. Until it goes "live" on your bookshelf, you can see the title of the book listed among all your other titles, but...YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO MAKE ANY CHANGES TO THE BOOK.

Here is why this is a problem. It does not take 24-72 hours for your book to become available for sale on Amazon. I uploaded Tales from the Hotel Bentmoore: The Complete Series yesterday morning, and by the afternoon, it was showing up on their website. But I couldn't access the work; I couldn't make any modifications to any of the information, the description, nothing. On my bookshelf, it still says "under review."

In this case, for some reason, my cover failed to upload. I don't know why. It showed up in the cover-box when I was going through the KDP process, but it's not showing up on their website. I would like to try to upload it again. BUT I CAN'T. So when people go to Amazon and see my titles, this one will not have a cover.

And a cover is important. It's what makes a lot of people take a better look. It's a first impression. If I don't have a cover, I end up looking...not so good. My work ends up looking shoddy.

Maybe, by tomorrow, or the next day, the book will go "live" on my bookshelf, and I'll be able to try again. But I don't see why I should have to wait. This was supposed to be the "release" of my book, and Amazon is just making it all that more frustrating.

Dear Amazon: if the book is for sale, that means it IS "live," and I should be able to have access to it to make changes if necessary.