The Least Fun Part of Publishing

Alphagraphics Fucks Up

A couple of months ago, Alphagraphics purchased RPI, my printer for Shock: Social Science Fiction. I’ve been hoping that the takeover would mean little to me.

Instead, it’s meant a lot. My rep retired at the same time, leaving my ass in the breeze. They’d lost my previous order, so I had to send them the very receipt they’d sent me so they could know what to reprint.

My shipment of Shock: just showed up with multiple screweups on their part. It’s a week later than the week they told me it would be late. The text block stock is all wrong: thin and translucent, it makes the spine too thin and the illustrations show through to the opposite page. The cover laminate is high gloss. It’s a mess.

If they make this right fast then I’ll keep using them. Mistakes happen. But I’m out of stock and was expecting to be able to do shipping two weeks ago.

All of this is sort of passing the buck to soften this apology: if you’ve ordered a copy of Shock: from me in the last month, I haven’t sent it. I know Brennan’s almost out, too. This would normally be very good news; it means that I’ve sold 200 copies of Shock: to my fellow enthusiasts of science fiction creation.

But it also means that the people who want to get a copy, can’t, at least from me. You can probably get a copy at IPR for a little while, at least.

So, I’m sorry. I’ll let you know as soon as this is sorted. Right now, this is making for a supercrappy week (what with my cat getting hit by a car and lots of money not coming through for work I’ve done on top of this. “Dear Livejournal…”).

So, lessons to learn:

1: Alphagraphics has so far been a pure poochscrewer. We’ll see if they make good.

2: Cats are expensive to put back together again. Not like Legos at all.

3: Be clear with your clients about what they’re paying for.

0 thoughts on “The Least Fun Part of Publishing”

  1. Yeah, it’s a drag, because it’s a holiday weekend and he needs surgery and can’t get it until next week.

    Fortunately, he’s in good spirits and is eating and drinking. But he’s supergimpy right now.

  2. I’m sorry to hear about your cat. I ran into the same problem getting medical care for my Lucifer on Thanksgiving two years ago.

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