Late Friday afternoon, I got an email from Amazon saying that because I hadn’t submitted my manuscript files for Sorcery and Sandstorms, all my pre-orders were cancelled, and anyone who had signed up for a pre-order would be notified of my failure and, therefore, would not receive a copy of the book on launch day. (Monday, June 22).
This was an error on Amazon’s behalf as I uploaded the files weeks ago. I contacted Amazon to have the issue sorted (via email, on a Friday night) and heard back from them on Saturday. Apparently there was an error during the upload process that meant the file I submitted, whilst it looked correct from my end, registered as corrupted to Amazon’s system and was, as a result rejected.
Unfortunately for me, there was no notification of this error, and so I had no idea what had occurred (nor did Amazon) until they went hunting after receiving my frantic emails.
Because the file corrupted, they tell me they cannot contact the people who already had Sorcery and Sandstorms on pre-order and offer to follow through. I was, however, welcome to build a new listing from scratch and offer that to my readers.
I jumped online to do just that – but Amazon has a 72 hour processing lead time on their manuscripts, which meant that I couldn’t organise a pre-order and had to submit the book directly and hope for the best. By this time, my panic and rage had subsided to hysterical giggles and I just hit publish and hoped for the best. Naturally, the book went live within 24 hours, because of course it did, right?
So… here we are. If you had a pre-order of Sorcery and Sandstorms and it was cancelled, I’m sorry. That was through no fault of mine, but unfortunately Amazon won’t be in contact to tell you that, and to offer you an alternative.
However, if you click this link, you can go to Amazon right now and get hold of the book a full day early, because Amazon so helpfully approved it – and emailed me to say how great that was, even while consoling me that all my pre-orders were lost to the ether with no way for me to contact those readers and let them know what happened.
Thanks for sticking with me, friends.
Peace and dragon hugs,
Sammy
xoxo
Samantha Marshall 