My Fiasco with AuthorHouse...

(Note: This part was written on Sunday, 4/6/08)…

Well, as of today, Sunday 4/6/08, I’m STILL waiting for my galley to be done by AuthorHouse. It’s been almost 6 weeks now since I had my “design meeting” and I’ve sent them 2 emails in the past 10 days describing my dissatisfaction with their service, explaining that waiting 6 weeks for a galley is absolutely UNACCEPTABLE! I’m not exactly sure what’s taking them so long with this part of the production of my book, and to be frank, there is now a real possibility that this could interfere with some events I have planned for late April and May (namely a GRAND opening of a new Borders store in Southbury CT in which the DMM of Borders in CT invited ME to participate in)!!! I feel helplessly frustrated by this whole chain of events that I’m experiencing with AuthorHouse, and am SERIOUSLY considering either choosing another company to publish the remaining books in my series OR publishing them myself.

Today (Monday, 4/7) I called the support supervisor but got her voice mail. I left her a lengthy message telling her this is my 3rd book with their company and I’m very unhappy with the way things are going, and that I need them to finish the production process ASAP. I STILL have not received any phone calls or email from them letting me know the status of things, which is discouraging in itself. Tonight I logged into my author account and lo and behold, i see that there’s progress! But now I’m in a NEW pickle!

When I talked to the design rep during my design meeting back in Feb, I told her I wanted to keep the page count down below 318 pages, which will keep my cost the same as it is for my other 2 books. Based on that, I asked them to put the retail price of $16.99 on the back of the book. Now, the cover is done (and any other changes I want to make will cost me), but the page count is over 318 (I don’t know the exact page count, as the communication between them and me SUCKS!). What it comes down to is if I leave the retail price on the back cover as it is now, I will make NO money on the book. Sigh…

SOOOOO I sent an email to my new rep at AuthorHouse (my old rep was AWESOME but he recently left to pursue other ventures), asking him to please bring the page count down BELOW 318 pages. What worse is I believe they have sent my galley to be printed, and then it will be mailed to me. This all could have been avoided if they would have contacted me earlier today to let me know this is the number of pages your book will have and this will be your cost .. OR hey, here’s a new concept, just DO WHAT I SUGGESTED AT MY DESIGN MEETING, and drop the font size one point so that it will decrease the number of pages!!!!

Ayeeeeeeeeeeeeee, so needless to say, I’m NOT happy with this experience with AuthorHouse, except for the cover design. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my cover!

… I just want to have my book finished and IN MY HANDS!!!

On the brighter side of things, I finally FINALLY finished the painting for my boyfriend Ryan, and gave it to him (sort of) on Sunday, 4/6/08. It’s a picture of the Bridge of Flowers in Shellburne Falls, Massachusetts that we went to last summer, and it took me about 4 1/2 months AND at least 50 hours to complete. If you’d like to see the finished product, go to my photo albums in my MySpace profile (www.myspace.com/mjallaire) and look for the album called “series of steps of the pic I’m painting for my beau”. If you feel up to it, please comment on any of the pictures and let me know what you think!

NOW I can start working on Book 4, Dragon’s Breath, and oh BOY what ideas I have in mind for this one (thanks to brainstorming with Ryan, especially this afternoon!)!!!! I’ll keep you posted on progress!!

Ok .. gonna run. I’ll definitely update this once AuthorHouse gets their head out of the sand! ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!

Hugs and have a great week!! MJ