Sucker Punch

Today started out with a forwarded email (to me) from one of the owner's of the company I work for. It was from a well-known publishing house in the UK and they ripped, I mean, it was nasty, ripped apart the ebook we did for big name author. We already knew that somehow the formatting was screwed up. I had discovered two chapter twos--before I uploaded it for sale--and removed it and cleaned it up. The two owners and myself agreed that the level of nastiness comes from a place of fear and possibly jealousy--the publishing world is shifting, and the big publishers are not sure how they fit into this new paradigm.

We're not sure exactly how it happened. I do know this, I've known it for years and it really hit home the last few months:  Microsoft Word has a mind of its own.

It does.

Saturday, I worked on the manuscript. I inserted ~~~~ into all non-chapter breaks in the novel (by request). I did a find/search in the document to make sure that each one was centered, one space before and one after, 12 pt, not bold. (And did you know that paragraphs markers can have a font size? Me neither.)  Satisfied, I saved and renamed the document (every time I make a change, the file name gets a new number, in numerical order. It just helps to find a document and keep track.)

I finished the search, thought it looked good, then decided to scroll through the document and look at each and every page--over 500--to see if anything anomalous jumped out at me.  Guess what I found two of, left justified, not centered? Yep, the non-chapter break, ~~~~.  I had done find/search of the whole document, fixed them all, and saved it, and two of those fuckers moved themselves back to the left side of the document. That is the kind of shit that can make the average person, let alone an editor/formatter/manager, totally batshit crazy.

I also found a chapter heading that had changed its font from Times New Roman to Garamond all on its own--after I had done a ctrl/A (highlight) of the entire document and changed the font to Times New Roman and then re-sized all the chapter title fonts.

So it is possible that although I removed the duplicate chapter, it may have added itself back in. It is not outside of the realm of possibility after some of the wacky shit I've seen Word pull. Seriously.

Also, there is the possibility that although I thought I removed it, it did not get removed, and my three subsequent search/find for key words / sentences from the chapter involved only showed up once; but after it was uploaded, they were back in there. Only I didn't know. One assumes that after one saves that no further changes will be made. Well, Microsoft schooled me.

I'm still waiting for the two owners to tell me they don't need me anymore. They did major butt-smooching to the author and the person who purchased the book and complained, and then sent them a free, clean copy.

Also, I offered to have either one of them review the document before I uploaded it back in August, and they both declined. This was only my first project for the business, and they trusted me to get it right--their biggest client ever, they gave to the new gal, and then didn't review it. So there's that.  And, oh yeah, no training. A list of directions, a "have at it" attitude, and answers to my emails--mostly.

This morning, I offered to take all the blame, i.e., "fall on my sword," but the owner told me that although that made her smile, she was the project manager for the book, and she would take the responsibility.

Lastly, the other owner commented that all Word docs need to be ran through a third-party formatting program to seal in the changes, otherwise Word could go a little buck wild.  That was not in the instructions I was given--it said, "site x and site z accept Word documents just fine."  Huh.

So I've been rattled, and a nervous wreck all day. Hell, for the last few days. So much of how I want my life to look revolves around this job. My husband asked me what I would do if I were indeed canned, and I said, well, I know a helluva lot more about epublishing than I did two months ago, I can always start my own business. But I don't really want to do that. And I really like the two ladies I'm working for--they have so much they can teach me and we all have so much in common and I consider them friends as well as mentors / bosses.

I feel like the wind has been knocked out of me.

And on the other hand, my former editing professor responded today to an email I wrote him the other day, with these kind words--and he's not the kind of person who would say nice things if he doesn't mean them:

Thanks for the update—and congratulations on the new job! It sounds like a perfect fit for you. I’m so happy that you found the kind of job you wanted. It’s rare in this economy, but your perseverance paid off. I love it that you’re able to work in various phases of the publishing process, from working with authors to formatting ebooks. That takes advantage of all your skills and will keep the job interesting.

A counterbalance for the sucker punch? Almost. I just feel as if I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I forwarded it to the owners' just in case, you know, toot my own horn and so on.

And lastly, my grad school advisor has not written me back in response to my email to her that I was quitting. This is a woman who previously answered my emails no matter what time I sent them right away--including 4am. (She's on the east coast, so she's 3 hours before my time).

Additionally, the note I left for my classmates with my email address did not elicit one response. I thought there would be one, maybe two emails, but nothing.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day, so I should take my sorry, anxious ass to bed.