Well, dear readers, what a wacko day it was yesterday, right from the get go. I woke up late because I really needed to sleep. Then I saw an e-mail that made me so angry I couldn’t even see straight – from my publisher. They have something new this year – a “content evaluation” phase where a bunch of yahoos sit and evaluate the content of every submitted book in terms of liability. They informed me that I would have to change the title of the book because The Music Man was a live trademark. Now, I don’t call the book The Music Man and it’s very clear in the actual title that a murder takes place at the show The Music Man. No amount of explaining this obvious thing made a bit of difference to my check-in coordinator. I insisted she take it to management and they also had a problem with some quoted lyrics, which they said exceeded some arbitrary limit. I have used quoted lyrics in every single book I’ve written – never had a problem, never will. I told her to take THAT to management to. I then went right to the lady who has been at the publisher and with me from the beginning, and while her current position precludes her from dealing with authors, she passed it on to HER management team and she told me they’d call me and we’d get it worked out.
That was how I spent my morning, and it was truly infuriating and I’m sure the check-in gal would probably be happy to not have to deal with me anymore. I don’t like her attitude and after twelve books I expect a little extra effort. I have been the poster child for this publisher and have done them tons of favors over the years, since, as there most published author, they use me to test out promotions – they did that for their book trailer program, I was their first author blog, their first live author interview, and on and on and on. So I don’t need attitude from some check in person. Then Doug Haverty called and reminded me that we had an appointment to see the website tech people who are going to take us into the current year, technology-wise, for haineshisway.com. So, I told him to come and pick me up. While I was getting ready, I thought that I should have an alternate title ready in case I lose that particular battle and I came up with one that I could live with. Doug liked it, too, and so did Muse Margaret. So, I told Doug to prepare a new cover. I was also told that no mention of The Music Man could be on the flap copy (how absurd – it’s discussing a plot point in the book) or on the blurbs (same), so I made those adjustments, just in case.
Then we had our meeting with the tech people. They were very knowledgeable and everything they said made perfect sense to me and I gave them the go-ahead to start immediately. What they are going to do is create a working clone of this here site, a kind of ghost version that will be hosted elsewhere and that we can work on as we go. The first thing they will do is update all of our ancient software in terms of where I write the notes and the discussion board – we’re like five years ago on both. Once that’s done, I’ll see how I like all of the updates and the look of everything. If I do, then that part is done. Doug is going to redesign our notes home page – it will have a similar look in terms of how the notes present themselves, but will be much more streamlined and with only a handful of links on the menu bar. The radio show will now be incredibly easy for everyone – they’ll make it so that when Donald uploads the show and someone clicks on the link to listen, it will open a universal player right on the site (no downloading anything to your own computer) and it will play straight through with no interruptions. We will make new registrations much more difficult by using “captcha” – while a few spambots may get through, the majority won’t and I will cease having to deal with nuking 100 of these things a day – that will be great. It will all work much more smoothly and easily now. You should be able to post pictures again, too, and not have to go through a hosted site, although doing the latter puts less strain on how much space we’re taking up. I’m hoping all this can happen within the next two months. Nothing will go live until we know that everything is working exactly as we wish it to. When it’s ready to go live, we will go offline for perhaps an entire day, but the notes will be put up during that period so no notes will miss a day – only a day of posts won’t happen. I’m told the propagation of the new site will happen very quickly for people. Other cool things – if I want to put a video in the notes, I can. If I want to put an image in the notes – I can. None of that has been possible heretofore.
After the meeting, Doug and I had some lunch, then I came home. He sent me the re-designed cover very quickly and it looked fine to me, so I called Grant and he redid the cover and spine, adjusted the blurbs on the back cover, and made changes to the flap copy, and we edited down an eight-line lyrics quote to two. It was all pretty simple. We then sent that to the check-in gal with a note saying that after my conversation with management, we would know which version to go with. Grant actually liked the new title better – to him it was more evocative. So, amusingly, we may end up going with that, but hopefully the original flap copy and blurbs can stay. The eight lines we changed – that’s okay with me – they weren’t that important, frankly.
But then I did something – I went to Google and searched The Music Man and trademark. And guess what I found? The musical comedy known as The Music Man, as I suspected, has no trademark at all. None. Zilch. What does have a trademark are two companies called The Music Man – one an apparel company, and one a music services company. They can’t preclude me from using the title in my title now if I wish to keep what we had because my use of The Music Man clearly references the SHOW and not these stupid companies. In other words, they saw, they made a leap in judgment that was completely incorrect and made me do a bunch of stuff I didn’t need to do. I wrote the check-in gal a really strong e-mail and included the link, and I also copied my gal who’s got my back there. I told them I expected an apology from the content evaluation people for being wrong and that I expected the book to go to the next phase quickly, since they just cost me two days. So, send excellent vibes and xylophones that all this works out to my satisfaction first thing in the morning.
I hadn’t gotten time to do any jog, so after I ate some turkey (hand-carved from Gelson’s), I did a three-mile jog at nine in the evening, which was actually kind of fun. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get as much beauty sleep as possible because I’ve asked the management (who’d called the house while I was out even though I also gave them my cell – I obviously missed the call and they were gone by the time I returned it) to call me first thing in the morning, which is probably eight my time.
Today, I shall be up early and hopefully resolving everything in terms of the book and moving it to the next phase, which will be getting me a galley and cover proof. At ten I have a two-hour work session with the musical director, I may or may not have a lunch, and then I have to buckle down, Winsocki and write some damn liner notes. I’ll also do a jog, hopefully pick up some packages, and hopefully relax.
Tomorrow, I also may or may not have a lunch, I’m seeing some show on Saturday night, and Sunday will hopefully be a day of rest.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a telephonic conversation with management and then get everything worked out with the book, I must have a work session, maybe have a lunch, jog, hopefully pick up some packages, write, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite what is it fish dishes? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, after which I hope the small book issues have been worked out to my satisfaction.