Progress Report 2026 Week 03

In Facebook’s group 20BooksTo50K and in other similar venues, I’ve read about writers who made serious clerical errors and felt embarrassed. I’m talking about errors that effect how the book was published. I can now say that I know exactly how they feel. I just discovered the biggest mistake of my publishing life. Or maybe I should say, of my publishing life so far. What was it, and what will it take to recover? Given the level of embarrassment, was I able to get much writing done? Before we talk about either of those, let’s look at the week’s key performance indicators.

Last Week’s Progress By the Numbers

Well, whatever I did that was so embarrassing, it didn’t hurt my output very much.

Just like last week, I found this week that the time I invested in working out the plot ahead of time paid off. The characters let me know that I needed to make some minor adjustments, and with the planning I had already done, I knew exactly where I needed to make the changes.

Not only that, but by this time in a novel, I usually have to make a lot of adjustments to one or more of the arcs. That didn’t happen in Wayland’s Hammer Book 3: Lines of Operation. I’m almost to the resolutions, and I haven’t had to make any major changes at all. I think I’m going to continue investing time in plotting before I begin writing. Not only does it make writing easier; it makes the story tighter. Seems like that was a smart move.

Dumbest Thing I’ve Done — So Far

I just mentioned something smart I’ve done to off set something dumb that I just did. It was very dumb. Stupid, even.

There are a lot of little steps you have to get right when you publish an ebook. There are even more little steps you have to get right when you publish an audiobook. Every chapter has to be recorded and edited. Each recording has to implement precise technical specifications. You have to set pricing; you have to have the right cover format. And, oh yeah, you have to have the right book description.

I’m an old software developer. I version control everything, including my manuscripts and all marketing materials associated with them. When I set up The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning in Author’s Republic, I grabbed the book 1 marketing material and pasted the blurb into the right field. I then double-checked the chapters, title, and cover, then hit publish.

That was back in October.

Yeah, that’s the wrong description. Sigh.

This week, I happened to take a look at the Amazon listing for the audiobook. It didn’t look right. I checked Author’s Republic and found that it wasn’t Amazon’s fault. Or Barnes & Noble’s. Or Apple’s. When I had grabbed the blurb from my file system, I’d grabbed book 1 all right.

I’d grabbed the description for Dreams of Deucalion Book 1: Special Recon. There, in every retail outlet’s listing for Red Flag Warning, was the blurb for Special Recon. And it had been that way for months.

I often make stupid little mistakes. Just as often, I catch them, or my alpha/beta readers catch it, or my proofreader catches it. But I didn’t catch this one. That’s the single dumbest thing I’ve ever done (in my publishing career). So far.

I worked with Author Republic, who had to re-open the book for editing. I pasted in the correct description and republished it. It’s been four days, and still no retailers have the updated description. I hope that in this coming week, at least Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple will update their blurbs. But as of right now, the testament to my stupidity remains in visible to everyone.

Given everything I have going on, I think it’s probably amazing something like this hasn’t happened until now. It’s just unfortunate that it had to happen with my first audiobook. Summer Foovay (the audiobook’s narrator), if you’re reading this, I apologize!

Progress Against Last Week’s Goals

Here’s how I did against last week’s goals:

1. Write Owen Payne’s plot turn 2: Done! Had to split it into two chapters.
2. Write Jackson Scott’s additional helper chapter: Deferred; will switch to a chapter about Amaterasu.
3. Write Gerhard Wimmer’s plot turn 2: Done!
4. (Stretch goal) Write Lehner’s pinch 2 part II: Not Done! I swapped it for another chapter.
5. Monitor proofreading for Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Point of Departure: Ongoing! The proofread should be done next week.
6. Monitor the Facebook ad for The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning: Ongoing! This effort is what helped me catch my dumb mistake.

Goals for the Week in Progress Report 2026 Week 3

Here’s what I hope to complete this week:

1. Write Moritz Lehner’s pinch 2 part III
2. Writer Amaterasu’s helper chapter
3. Write Owen Payne’s resolution part I
4. Write Lehner’s plot turn 2
5. Monitor proofreading for Wayland’s Hammer Book 1: Point of Departure
6. Monitor the Facebook ad for The Sword of Sirius Book 1: Red Flag Warning

What Do You Think?

What’s the very dumbest thing you’ve done when publishing a book? How’d you recover? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!