Last minute panic…

Good morning! Or not, as the case may be. I’m sitting here, poised and ready to upload Fallen for Rock to Amazon for release on Monday. The files are polished, the blurbs are ready, the pricing is worked out to the penny… all systems are go, and then this happens when I try to visit the Kindle Direct Publishing homepage:

Now I’ve been an Amazon customer since it was first born way back when and a KDP author since 2011. I’ve never seen a screen like that. My first reaction is abject terror. What is going on?

I have a book launch on Monday. I need to upload my book file urgently. KDP can take anything from 12 hours to 48 hours to upload a file to Amazon. With that, I have to walk a very fine line. I don’t want the book available too far ahead of launch day because that’ll spoil the fun. I definitely want it available on launch day because otherwise… that’ll spoil the fun too.

Thus I thought: Upload on Saturday morning for a Monday release. That ought to do it. Right?

Yes. Unless, of course, I can’t get the book uploaded!!

So I do some digging, and it turns out that the problem doesn’t lie with Amazon at all.

I dig some more and discover that the problem is countrywide… (we’re talking UK here, of course).

To add insult to injury, the site for logging outage queries or complaints with BT is also down! In fact, the only sites that are working right at this moment are Google, Facebook and, thankfully, WordPress (otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this). Speaking of Facebook, I posted there and had a heart-warming response of sympathy and encouragement. I love you, folks! Here’s just a snapshot of the conversation that ensued…

So what’s next? Drink tea and stay calm, I think. (I’d post a photo, but I’m still in my jamas!)

There’s nothing much else I can do right now except sit tight and wait. At the time of publishing this post, all the affected sites, including KDP and Amazon, are still unavailable to me. Don’t get me wrong. I know technology goes wrong, and I suspect (hope!) that the good folks at BT are working like mad  to get this fixed. But why did it have to be this particular Saturday morning? I mean, come on, I only upload books twice a year!

Still, there’s no point in ranting. I’ll keep checking and trying, because that’s my job as your friendly author of romance with rock stars, LOL. In fact, this whole situation is not unlike the sound desk going down just minutes before a gig, so I do feel quite rock star. 🙂

And the reason I’m writing this? Well, for one, it gives you a lovely insight into the world of publishing, specifically the last minute hiccups that make life so very exciting. And for another, it’s just so that you’ll know why Fallen for Rock may not be available very first thing on Monday morning, 30 June, as previously promised. But I’ll do my utmost to make it happen.

Thanks for reading, and rock on. Wish me luck! x

12:46pm ~ POSTSCRIPT: My hopes were fulfilled and prayers granted!!! The outage ceased, the sites became available, and the book is uploaded pending review and going live… squeeeee!