This is just a note to let my readers know why there have been so few updates lately, despite my assurances that I'm trying. (I really am, BTW). And to maybe provide a few laughs at my blundering progress.

I've been struggling to get The Misplaced Hero: What Do You Mean the Demon Lord Has Already Been Defeated published in time for an upcoming event, with enough leeway to have physical books on the table. It was more difficult than I'd anticipated, largely due to my own blundering. And IngramSpark. Those guys sure are a piece of work, lemme tell you.

During the past month or so, I've learned how to format for kindle, create an interior pdf for hardcover publishing, and the existence of a thing called PDF/X-1a:2001. See, IngramSpark won't take just any type of PDF file. Has to be PDF/X-1a:2001, or PDF/X-3:2002. My publisher (who's also grinding 3 more book completions for the same event) told me about the PDF requirement, but neglected to tell me about the /X version. He's posh and is using Office365. It's native to that, and to Adobe Pro 10 or newer. I'm still slogging along with Office 2007, which, while it can publish to PDF, can't publish to that PDF. The oldest version of Office that will is 2014. I think. That information is remarkably difficult to pin down on the internet. Without a copy of the program to hand, or somebody handy who has access to it, I'm only guessing based on clues.

Older versions of Adobe can use an auxiliary program to create one, but I don't have the proper version of that, either.

So, while I could take care of most updates to the amazon version (who'll take standard PDF for interior files) on my own, I had to email everything regarding IngramSpark to my publisher and have him take time out of his otherwise busy day to convert it for me. I also found out about the habit of amazon to kick back the manuscript for 'errors' that are seemingly random or non-existent. Five tries is too many tries over the bot flagging the borders of some page numbers. Not all of them, mind you, just some. Pages 2-21 to be specific. The other 387 pages passed. Then, once we got the page numbers cleared, it threw an error for, I kid you not, the lines above and beneath the to be continued page text.

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Still, we got it all done by last week. Only for me to get the IngramSpark eproof for final perusal and approval only to realize that we'd formatted and sent the wrong version of the cover. AAAGH! We'd gone over that proof and our formatted copy multiple times, and I hadn't noticed until it came time for the final approval. Much panic on my part ensued, which eventually led to him relenting and redoing it. Thankfully, Wong40k, who created the excellent cover for me, sent me links to the files, which turned it from a task of several hours to a half hour job front to back. Still not perfect, but I'm not going to worry about it just yet. I'll let things calm down a bit first.

As of my typing this, at around 06:30, August 12th, 2024, the book is up on kindle for $7.99. It's available as a hard cover from either amazon or through order at pretty much any brick and mortar book store for $27.99 I think these are middle of the road prices, given it's 408 pages in 6X9 hardcover format. The Library of Congress copy is also on its way to them, so I may be able to get it into libraries with a little finagling.

I'm currently working on ACX to find a reader for the audiobook. That's not going so quickly, I'm afraid. The paperback requires completely different formatting for the cover, and probably a different interior file, so that's a ways off.

Soon as the audio book's sorted, I've got to do the whole thing over again with Tairn, which I'm also supposed to have ready for the same event. Or at least by end of year. Then Raiders, which I haven't quite finished.

Meanwhile, what's going on with the story of Jack Grenell and Iktchi-Chi? A retcon. Not a big one, but significant. It occurred to me that, given belt pouches of holding are canon, why wasn't Chi, a level 56 fire mage, carrying one? Which she obviously wasn't, given her complete lack of gear at the beginning of the book. That's gotta be fixed. I think I can do it without complete upheaval, but I'll have to see. Which means a complete reread with adjustments, which'll take a few days even if I ignore everything else. When that's done, I'll post the changes and tags in the author's notes of the next chapter posted as well as in the relevant chapters.

Thanks, any and all of you who've bothered reading this, and hopefully, my next upload will be actual story.

Tom