My Paperback Looks Good!

It looks like a real book! 

As afraid as I was to open the package, fearing my margins would be way too wide or too narrow or some other frightful thing had happened, the text itself looks great. I'm not thrilled with the lack of spaces between paragraphs, but I'm going to need to live with it. I followed KDP's template, so I assume that's just how they do it.

Only one problem ~ the blurb on the back cover is a mess. I don't know if it was me, but "somebody" really screwed it up.Thankfully, it's an easy fix, but now I'll have to wait about 72 hours before the book is approved again. I'm talking a real mess. I typed the first sentence twice, inserting "she" in front of "Leah Branch", so it reads as "She Leah Branch just blew her record contract". On the plus side, the screw-up allowed me to revise my blurb; tighten it up. I'm also removing the fake image of "me" from the back cover. Why is an author's image necessary anyway? I wouldn't be averse to including a real photo, but I certainly have no professional headshots. I've considered using an AI photo generator, but it requires around sixteen photos in order to work its magic, and I have basically two pictures of myself. 

On the marketing end of things, I bought two more ads:

BookDoggy for March 1, which cost $24.00.

LitNuts for March 3, for which I had a promo code, so the final cost was $16.80. They do not have a women's fiction genre, unfortunately, so I had to choose literary fiction. (I hate doing that.) 

The Recommended Reading site I submitted to on a fluke acknowledged receipt of my submission, but that's as far as it will go until I get their rejection. I can't afford $150.00 anyway.

A couple of sites have rejected me, which I suppose shows that they're not just in it for the money, and I'm not going to obsess over the rejections. I've frankly spent enough money already. 

I wouldn't say I'm "excited" about my book going live on the 1st, but tracking my promos will at least give me something to do in my free time. 

I am excited about my paperback, though, and once the revised version is live, I'll order another author copy, just to have a physical memento of my work (one without errors).

And on we go...