My First Business Mistake

I guess it had to happen sooner or later, but I would have rather my first business mistake had come a bit later than just a few weeks in. You all know the difficulty I have in formatting things for printing and understand colour profiles and the like. To be honest, everything feels a bit hit and miss. Where I can I have asked for things to be checked, even if it costs a little bit extra (I did this when ordering my greeting cards), and I’ve always ordered a test copy of each of my books to check everything was okay.

So What Was My First Business Mistake?

I’m so pleased I did this, because it was in one of my preordered books that I spotted my first business mistake. For some reason there were marks at the corner of each page of the lined notebook. I went into my KDP account and brought up the files I had uploaded. Sure enough, one each page there were the marks. I can’t believe I didn’t notice it!

Thing is, I wasn’t sure what the marks were and therefore didn’t have a clue how to remove them. After much research, I discovered I had left the bleed marks setting on. I went into my original file and turned the setting off. This got rid of the marks but also shifted the lines, messing with the formatting. I sighed and went right back to the drawing board.

Long story short, I have managed to sort it out and the changes are currently being checked and okayed by KDP.

Someone Ordered One of My Books!

Around the time my copies came through, I was notified that someone had bought one of my books. Unfortunately, it was the lined version, and it was before I made the changes. I suspect that it might have been someone who reads my blog…simply because I don’t think anyone else knows they exist!

So if it is you, firstly, thank you so much for supporting my small business. And secondly, I love to send you a copy without the marks. I really want my customers to enjoy my notebooks, and I know the marking would irritate me. So if you have bought a lined Sea Life Notebook from me on Amazon, could you leave a message below or email me on clairestewart@angelicscalliwags.com and I’ll send you out a lined copy for free.

Lessons Learnt

I was very disappointed that my first customer would be getting a substandard product. This is not how I wanted to start my business. But, I guess going forward, I can say with some certainty that I will not be publishing anything until I have the test copy delivered. My products are the real face of my business and if they are imperfect then people will not want to come back and buy from me again. Lesson learnt!

Tomorrow I will be showing you the books themselves. I am so pleased by them! My goal for the rest of this week is to upload my next design. This will be my butterfly design and the notebook will have cream pages instead of white. Oh, and I’ll be checking each and every one before they go on sale.