Such an exciting week! Twice this week, my authentic writerhood has been confirmed! First, I received my first royalty check for “Necromantic Nights.” Yay! Look at me! People have bought my book! Actually, I have made sales in each month since publication. Now, if only I could increase sales in the months ahead. Secondly, another first! I received my very FIRST Rejection letter! WOOHOO! A real writer am I!

You can now purchase NECROMANTIC NIGHTS from Amazon using the following link: NECROMANTIC NIGHTS Thank you for your support and encouragement. Now back to writing The Nexus | Book Two: DEMONIC DAYS.

Necromantic Nights should be available on Amazon by the end of this week! I can’t believe I’ve reached this point. It’s been a long haul, and for too many reasons - probably me, I’m the primary reason for the delay. I really struggled finding time between the demands of work, life, and unexpected health issues this year. My original plan was to publish this past May, but was unable to hit that date. Final edits were complete by June 9th. On June 10th, I tried to finalize my Kindle Direct Publishing account set up, which required what they call “Identification Verification.” This is basically an attempt to confirm I am who I claim to be by providing my office government-issued ID. You have to take a picture, front and back, of the ID and upload it. It should take only a few minutes. It did not. My ID verification kept failing. I took 20 millio n pictures of my ID, tried to make sure I followed all their “tips” on taking the perfect picture for the process to work. No luck. At one point, after some number of attempts to get my ID verified, they locked my account and forbade me from using KDP! They did unlock in on appeal. I used the support email option and kept getting the same response, which was to review their “tips” for taking pictures of my ID. I checked the community forum and found numerous posts from others having the same issue. They, too, could not get a response from KDP. There was no way to reach a human. Regular Amazon customer service doesn’t support KDP, which is understandable. I know this because I called Amazon’s corporate headquarters and got a phone tree with the operator option, which only returned a fast busy. I tweeted KDP on X and didn’t even get a courtesy tweet back. I reached out to the KDP on LinkedIn and they did direct message me, telling me someone would be in touch. I kept trying to verify my ID, and after so many more times, my KDP account was locked, and I was banned from ever using KDP again. They would NOT unlock it even on appeal! I cried. This went on from the 10th through Friday the 13th and I was in a panic. I had made commitments to Liberty Con and they had set up sessions for me to read from Necromantic Nights, have an autograph table, and time in their Authors’ Alley. At that rate I was going, not only would I not have books to bring and sell, but I would even have an Amazon link where people could buy the book! Late Friday, I finally received a useful email from KDP. They admitted to a technical issue with ID Verification and waived the requirement! Hallelujah! Some last-minute editing had to be done as we were preparing the manuscript to fit into the KDP format, and we had to finish the cover using their template. So, Monday night, around 2am into Tuesday morning, I uploaded the manuscript and cover. Before I could finish the “Create a book” process, I had to get a preview of the book. I have no problem with the requirement, previewing the book is essential to catch those last-minute needed format updates. So, I click the Preview button and I wait . . . and wait . . . And then discovered my Internet went out. My provider only has “after-hours” support, which basically means I leave a voicemail. I went to bed around 3 in the morning, BUT my Internet was back by the time I woke up to get ready for work, around 7 am. YAY! Preview went well with one minor formatting change. The book progressed to the KDP review phase, which can take up to 72 hours . In that time, KDP will flag any issues they have with the book so they can be addressed. So far, I’ve not had any email from KDP and, keeping my fingers crossed, I hope the book will be made available on Amazon by Thursday sometime, or worst case, Friday. I will celebrate once the book is live and ready for purchase.