So, after about 18 months writing and rewriting, I finally got around to publishing the ebook version of the long-awaited third title in the Popular Fiction Masterclass series. That was a week ago on 28 May. It had been a surprisingly tough writing journey, so I was delighted to see it there on the Amazon website – complete with a cover deigned by my own fair hand.

Only one problem. Amazon were dragging their feet over the publication of the paperback version.

If you’re familiar with the Kindle Direct Publishing service you’ll know that each author has a kind of dashboard page where they do most things connected with the publication and management of their books. Having successfully uploaded an ebook of Write Like J.K. Rowling to KDP via this dashboard, I waited several days for Amazon’s feedback on the acceptability of the laboriously designed and formatted paperback text and cover. Its status resolutely remained at ‘IN REVIEW’.

June arrived, and I was beginning to lose all hope when finally the status changed. It wasn’t good news. The book had been rejected on copyright grounds. The email that appeared in my inbox to explain the rejection was not at all clear on the reasons, but it seemed to be something to do with the fact that I was using legally protected words in my title. That could really only be ‘Harry Potter’, although ‘J.K. Rowling’ was a possibility too.

To cut a long story short, I eventually concluded that trying to talk Amazon round was doomed to failure, and I decided instead to rename the book.

At first, I toyed with the idea of calling it Write Like She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. But after a bit more thought I realised this was just a bit too vengeful. ‘He-who-must-not-be-named’ is of course one of Voldemort’s nicknames in the Harry Potter novels, and it was a sense of power-crazed oppressiveness about it that’s lacking from the other main nickname: ‘You-Know-Who’. This latter option was the one I went for.

In a pessimistic moment right after submitting the new paperback materials and completing the redesign of all related web pages and promotional materials, I did wonder whether this would actually satisfy Amazon. After all, their explanation had not been all that clear, and it was just possble they might continue to hold up my book launch on the basis of some other technicality. But nothing prepared me for the subsequent few days of back-and-forth attempts to get both the ebook and the paperback version published..

When the next rejection came, I was fairly patient and went through the KDP publication rules with a fine-tooth comb. But no new explanatory information leapt out at me. All I could thin, of to do was simply to resubmit and hop[e that another Amazon moderator would pick it up and see the matter differently. This happened several times, and always it came back as a rejection after half a dday of waiting in despair. At my lowest moment, I thought of withdrawing the books and selling them via a less dominant retail outlet or via my own website.

But eventually, a miracle happened – the paperback was accepted – it seemed some other pair of eyes at Amazon HQ had been cast over this troublesome boomerang of a book, and their owner had approved the paperback for publication.

Only one problem: the ebook was now being rejected!!!

I had decided to rename that as well, in order to avoid confusing my readers, and when I came to resubmit it with a fresh cover and internal text, the KDP moderators spat it out like a cat with a fur ball. This is spite of the fact that the title no longer contained the words ”Harry Potter or ‘J.K. Rowling’. I can only think that the people responsible for policing J.K. Rowling’s various pieces of valuable intellectual property are so litigious and vigilant that their attention is drawn by such innocuous terms as ‘must-not-be-named’ – inspired as it is by Voldemort’s nickname.- and that even the mighty Amazon is terrified of receiving a legal letter requesting with threats and menaces that they cease and desist from allowing the abuse of Ms. Rowling’s intellectual property.

Again, cutting this long story short, I spent another day or so trying to repeat the trick I’d pulled off with the paperback – I simply resubmitted it again and again. But this time Amazon showed a much stiffer backbone and nothing changed. At points I could have thrown my laptop out of the window, but thankfully something stopped me, and instead, I went through teh KDP rules for publication again very carefully. Something caught my eye. It was the fact that KDP don’t like to see the word ‘bestseller’ in titles. The subtitle I had chosen referred to ‘a bestselling children’s novel’. Could that be the offending detail, even though the term didn’t even represent a claim about my own book but rather about the indisputably bestselling first Harry Potter book? For lack of any better ideas, I decided to act on that basis and simply try getting rid of the book’s subtitle – the section that contained the ‘bestselling’ reference.

Blow me down if it didn’t only work!!!

In fact, the speed with which the subtitle-free ebook was accepted even suggested that the KDP moderators were quite desperate to clear this case and move on. Maybe this is fanciful, but I imagined a cheer of relief arising from some cubicle in a locked down office somewhere as the occupant saw what I’d done and approved the ebook … OK, that’s silly, I know. But it had begun to feel like a perspnal battle of wills between me and the Amazon bureaucrats, and when I saw the change of status to ‘PUBLISHING’, I could have kissed the bureaucrat responsible.

So, that’s my story. I hope you enjoy the book and that the new title is acceptable to you. I fear sometimes that it will prove too confusing for potential buyers, but there again it could just as easily provide a hook – an intriguing reason for looking into the text itself to find out exactly what the books all about. We shall see!