The returning readers among you might know that I am currently getting my first children’s book (Below the Floor) into print. I am waaay behind my initial schedule. Mostly because of things that were not foreseeable.
Like: If you do not life in the US and you are making business with Amazon Create Space you have to pay taxes in both countries. Bad news. But if you research a little you find out that Austria (the country I live in) and the US have a tax treaty (and yes, I had to grind through the US tax law) and that there is a form which frees you from paying taxes in both countries due to this deal. You just have to fill out a W-8BEN form from the US Department of the Treasury Internal Renevue Service and hand it in. Easy, right? Not quite. To be able to fill out this form, you need some kind of tax ID in the United States. To get this tax ID (EIN or ITIN, depending on the kind of company you own) you have to fill out the form FSS4…. and on it goes. This whole story cost me about two weeks time.
Furthermore, there were some issues with the test prints I got from Amazon and I had to adjust some of the illustrations for the book to make sure that it all looks good. (Apart from these beforementioned issues the proof looked great 🙂 )
This was when my computer went silent. It crashed and would not want to wake up again. My “kleines Viech” (which means as much as “fierce little biest”) had served me for many, many years now. And even now that it was dead it would not let me down: All data was safe as it has two physical hard drives. One for the system and one for the data.
Then, there were some issues with the printer of the hardcover version of the book. Luckily, that has been solved by now.
So, what I want to say is: Things can and will always go wrong, there can always be unforseeable hurdles. Especially when you are doing something for the first time. The remedy for this is simple:
Keep calm. Find the solution quickly. Stay focused. Get it done.
Life is short. Don’t waste time.
How do you handle problems within your project? Feel free to leave a comment below! 🙂
I create worlds. John E. Brito's Blog 
Oh dear, its always a pain when something like this happens at a critical time. You have the right attitude though, keep calm, don’t panic, it’ll get stored. My computer crashed a year of so ago – fortunately everything was backed up ect. Also, you never realize how much you depend on a computer until its goes majorly wrong. Anyway, you’ll get everything fixed and be up and running again soon.
LikeLike
Yes, backing up your data is by sure the most clever option. Something I do not always do. But hey, 2017 is coming and I guess that would make for a good New Year`s resolution :))
LikeLike