Creative Vapors

Amazon corrected the error in my name listing, so now it properly R. Purdy. I thought they put in the correction quite promptly. The cover image is also showing up and now Amazon is also offering a 20% discount on The Stuttering Bard of York so you can order it for $11.20.

The error in my listing wasn’t Amazon’s fault. I discovered that the information in my printer’s digital catalog had the erroneous comma so Amazon had picked it up from them. I contacted the printer to correct the digital catalog error and I learned from them that their system had been adding commas to a number of names, so the problem was on their end.

I am also in the process of signing up for Amazon’s Search Inside The Book program. If all goes well it will be at least a couple of weeks before searching inside The Stuttering Bard of York will become available on Amazon.

Finally, I’ve seen a ranking surge on Amazon. As of this morning The Stuttering Bard of York is up to rank 188,983. A week ago it I was running somewhere over 1,000,000. This might make someone think I’ve sold a lot of copies. This isn’t the case. Not sure how Amazon calculates ranking, but I’ve only sold a few copies. It’s fun to say, “Wooohooo! I’m ranked 188,983–that means only 188,982 books are selling better than mine!” But in truth it makes me realize that any book ranked higher than the lower thousands probably isn’t selling much at all.

This Monday my first order of books came in. UPS shipping had the books on my doorstep in three business days. I now have books to give away for publicity and to sell.

I can check online to see sales of my book through the distribution channel. It updates pretty fast. You can see the money from sales adding up almost in real time. Like Amazon ranking, this is something some people would find themselves obsessively watching. So far I’ve picked up two sales. Since I haven’t done anything to get the word out yet, I’m pretty confidant both sales were to family.

Earlier this week I contacted Amazon to correct the error in the listing of my name with The Stuttering Bard of York. I received a message back saying they would put in the correction. That is good, but the correction hasn’t happened yet. It could be a number of days . . .

Today I spent a good part of the afternoon attempting to create and update my listing not only with Amazon but with Borders and Barnes & Nobles as well. I was derailed halfway through the process when I discovered that there appears to be an error in my listing in Bowker’s Books in Print. By the end of the day I still hadn’t got to the bottom of that, so I haven’t even begun to work on my listing with Barnes & Nobles or Borders.

At least I did manage to go through the proper channels to upload a cover image for The Stuttering Bard of York on Amazon. That should be appearing with the book in 3-5 business days.

I was trying to keep tabs on Amazon.com to see when The Stuttering Bard of York appeared on the website, but today it happened and my Mom was the first to spot it. It appears as if the listing contains just the barebones info pulled (I presume) from Ingram’s distribution database. However, in that classic mistake, it seems someone screwed up my name. It is listed as “R., Purdy” . . . and I’m not sure how that comma got in there, but it looks pretty stupid.

I will post a link to the book on Amazon.com later, after I’ve had a chance to edit the listing (add a cover image and see if the name error can be corrected).

Overall, I’m very pleased with how quickly the book was listed on Amazon.com.

Today the homepage of Creative-Vapors.com went online. Unfortunately it is still very much under construction. I hope in the near future to have it in some semblance of completion for readers who have read The Stuttering Bard of York, or are interested in reading it.

So many things I need to do and so little time.

Early today the gallery copy for The Stuttering Bard of York arrived on the doorstep via UPS. I checked it over and late today submitted my approval of the galley. The book is now offically published and will appear in Ingram’s distribution channels shortly.

Let the adventure begin!