This is part of a series about my experiences in publishing a book. The series starts here.
On Thursday, I got a call from FedEx in Salinas, saying that they had my books, and wanted to arrange a delivery time. We agreed on Friday afternoon, and also agreed that they’d load the books in a bobtail truck, since it would be difficult to get them to my house in an 18-wheeler.
Late Friday afternoon, there was no FedEx trunk in sight. I called the office in Salinas, and asked what was going on. They guy said the books were still there. I asked when they could deliver them. He said he’d check. Then he got back on the phone and said that the books weren’t in Salinas after all. They were, and had been for two days, in Modesto. We agreed that he’d call me when the books were in Salinas, and we’d arrange a delivery time.
This afternoon, I got a call from a driver with a load of books asking for directions. I was surprised, since no delivery time had been arranged. I was further surprised when the driver told me the boks were in a semi. After some discussion, we agreed that he’d take the books back to Salinas, and that they’d call me to arrange delivery with a bobtail.
That wasn’t the only thing to go wrong today.
I started to look at selling the book on Amazon. I’m not sure I want to do that, but I thought I’d at least check into it. They wanted the ISBN number for the book as part of their registration procedure. I went to the folds-and-gathers to get it. It wasn’t there. “That’s funny,” I said to myself, “I wonder where it is.” I emailed Jerry Takigawa, and he said that it was the client’s — that would be moi — responsibility to get ISBN numbers, and that it was in the agreement that I’d signed.
Oops.
We talked through the possibilities. I could get an ISBN number, and a UPC, and have them imprinted on stickers, which I could then put on the outside of the shrink-wrap. The only problem with that is that, if someone bought the book and wanted to return it, Amazon wouldn’t know the ISBN number, and wouldn’t know how to restock it. So I’d have to tear open the shrink-wrap on each book I wanted to send to Amazon, apply a sticker to the dust jacket, and somehow rewrap it.
That doesn’t sound like something that I could do myself without have the result look unprofessional. So, I’d have to take a bunch of books to some shop and have them do it.
Now I’m questioning whether I want to sell the book through a big outfit like Amazon.
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