The View from Middle Spunk Creek

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BLITZ!

The machinations of the modern world oft times leave this old dude with his head spinning and mouth hanging open.  Instant communication. Instant delivery. (the need for) instant gratification. More often than not, they lead to instant puzzlement…..or, sometimes, disappointment.

But not always.

With the build-up for the May 7 ebook blitz for The Reaper in high gear, I received an email from Amazon’s KDP division on May 1 saying they wouldn’t wouldn’t upload The Reaper for ebook publication because: “you may not hold the necessary rights. Some or all of the content within your book(s) is available on Amazon from a different publisher.”

Say, what?

There was a flurry of action on our side trying to find out what triggered this email, trying to explain that: (a)  The Reaper is an original work,  (b) I wrote it, and (c) No one else has published it, and trying to talk to the person who sent the email.

Twenty emails, a half dozen phone calls and twenty-six hours later, out of the blue, I received a second email from KDP: “Hello. Congratulations, your book “The Reaper” is now live and available for purchase in the Kindle Store!”

No explanation of what triggered the original email. No explanation of how they solved whatever perceived problem they thought there was. No direct communication (because none is available) with the people at Amazon making those decisions. No explanation of why they caused so much stress in our lives for 26 hours.

The only conclusion I can come to is that there must have been a glitch in their software (one of those “machinations” that I mentioned earlier) and that the first email was meant to be sent out April 1, not May 1.  Now that I think of it, the software actually failed twice.  I never got the second email that said “April Fools.”

But all’s well that ends well, I guess. 1. I didn’t have a heart attack, and 2. The May 7 book blitz is a “go”.

So, please, please, please buy your 99-cent ebook on Tuesday, May 7 by clicking here.

We are trying to make The Reaper a best seller on Amazon for at least one day, and hopefully many more. Plus, it will help this old dude’s heart stop racing from unexpected emails.

***

Can’t let the week go by without a visit from The Old Punster.

“What’s the trouble?” asked the psychiatrist to the man lying on his couch.

“I keep having these two dreams. They’re very troubling,” the patient said.

“Tell me about them.”

“In one, I dream I’m a teepee,” the patient replied. “In the other, I dream I’m a wigwam.”

“Your diagnosis is simple,” said the psychiatrist. “You’re two tents.”