SCREAM!

Sometimes the valve on a pressure cooker has to be lifted to free the building air pressure. That is about where I felt yesterday. I received the proof book for the book I am publishing and it looked good to me. There were a few changes that needed making so I did those, uploaded the whole book (something that has to be done for each change). My cousin's wife checked the order status and realized the book size was wrong. She couldn't get me on the phone so she called the publisher and told them to hold the presses. The gal literally had to run into the plant and grab the order out from the printing area and return it to the office. That's when I learned of the problem. I was told to upload one more time so I did that yesterday afternoon with a grrrrrr......knowing that I had changed nothing so nothing was going to be different. (the process takes at least forty minutes each time) I was right. They received my upload and the size of the book was still wrong. I thought I'd go over the edge. You all know how long this has been in process. I was stymied. I'm being told not to change the order but to send it again and again. If I accidentally reorder, I'm stuck with owing them big money. After about the fifth phone call of the day, I finally pleaded with the girl in the office and said, "I'm totally confused. I don't know how to give you the info you want." She said to call her back once my upload finished. It was another bad one so I should have just aborted it. FINALLY, she asked me to open my original document and look at the margins. I had told her twenty times that the margins were set right. Then she had me open the page sizes. Ahhhhh....the page size has been wrong from the beginning of this process. Now that makes more sense to me. I was running around the same mountain over and over and not making any progress and my stress level was RISIN'. NOW that we know the problem, I fixed the problem only to create another and that is that then the formatting was all goofed up. I had to go through 287 pages and make sure the chapters started at the beginning of the page and that all the pictures were in the places they were supposed to be. This was a huge hassle. I have to complete this thing and thought I had. I could scream but it wouldn't do me any good. I didn't know when I would get the thing complete now. If Nancy didn't live four hours away I would have been waiting at her door when she came home from work last night. Instead there was a message waiting for her on her machine.

Nancy returned my call and listened to my saga. She said she was absolutely sure the page size was set correctly. I began to feel like I was losing my mind. The implication was that somehow I was changing the original set up and I knew I wasn't. We decided I would put my original document on a disc and send both the disc and the proof book to Nancy. I prepared a note to fax to the publisher that things were on hold for several days. While I was in the process of that, my phone rang again and I could see on the ID that it was Nancy. I answered, "Have you figured it out?"

This was her reply......"Yes, and you are going to kill me". Seems that she began to dig after our initial phone call and suddenly realized her mind had gotten confused during this whole process. What she was so sure about, wasn't true. We HAD set the page size correctly in the beginning but when we got to talking about the cover of the book, she got confused and thought we were expecting a book a half inch larger both in width and length. At this point, I could feel myself settling down. Road blocks aren't the end of everything IF you can find a way around them but when one spins their wheels for days...it does get very frustrating. I had now found my way around this road block.

Nancy was very remorseful. I asked if she would call the publisher today to explain this ridiculous mess. At this point we have text for a 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 book and a cover for a 6 x 9 book. The art department is going to have to shrink the cover. I don't know if they will charge us for that change or not. Probably. I doubt it will be more than fifty dollars if they do so I am not going to sweat it. At least the problem has been clearly identified.

My only problem now is that I have reformated my original document when it was correct in the first place. UHG somemore. I know I have to bring it all back the way it was but it will wait a few days. I don't want to look at it today.

If you can follow this nightmare.....you are quicker than me.