HARBENDANE: the saga continues -- or, CreateSpace Strikes Again

CreateSpace strikes again.

I'm starting to think THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE must have been conceived under a black cloud and born during an evil conjunction --

The proof copy arrived at loooong last. This is the proof that was shipped on December 29th without an international shipping label, kept for fifteen days by USPS, sent back to CreateSpace, and shipped again by extra-fast priority mail. Right, so far?

Well, the re-shipment arrived in great time. They just shipped the wrong book.

We have to SEE and APPROVE the proof of THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE before it can start the long road to Amazon ... so, it doesn't help us that they sent another copy of AQUAMARINE instead.

Find me a wall, and I shall bash my head against it. Just two days ago I was saying that CreateSpace is known to make booboos, and this would be one of them.

So right now it's back to the drawing board. They have no phone support service; you go online and send a message to Customer Support from their own internal messaging page. Allow two days for this to be read; another one or two for the book to be printed and shipped; 10 days for it to be delivered to Australia, minimum; up to 14 days for Amazon to process it through into the online engine.

That makes another month. In other words, THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE will be appearing in the Amazon.com engine in mid-February at the earliest ... and there's nothing anyone here can do to make the process go faster.

Sorry, guys.

Other than this, the Mel-o-Sphere is something of a vacuum. I'm working on LEGENDS, and I've made several contributions to the Digital Kosmos photoblog:



Where the ice meets the sea;
Smuggler's Cove;
Fall comes to the Fairbanks hills;
Million dollar legs;
Living rock;
The Greek Islands? Looks are deceiving!;
The view from the Giant's Cave;
Alpenglow on the Chugach.

The photoblog is a lot of fun. It's a great opportunity to talk about photography, and to haul out some pictures which are eons old but still deserve to be shared. This was a great idea, for which Jade deserves the credit.

And now, if you'll excuse me -- got to work!

Ciao for now,
MK