I just spent over 30 minutes futzing with the #*#*#*&_)*)_@*# Amazon Author Central Editor and it kept mangling my text. I just pasted in the same formatting that worked fine a few days ago. I gave up and tried to do it manually. Finally I gave up after another 15 minutes and just wanted to Bold a couple of lines and space the text so that it wasn’t scrunched up together.
The editor kept stripping out my page breaks and scrunching things together despite all my attempts to fix it. I discovered that double page breaks worked. It stripped out one and left the other.
This is totally EFFFING ridiculous!!!!!!!
I don’t have time to play “GUESS WHAT AMAZON CHANGED TODAY” when I am trying to make changes to update my product page or enter a new one.
If an author wants to put in breaks (<br/>) for example, which are supposedly supported according to the latest email I got back from AMAZON and posted. Then by gosh I want to be able to put in said tags without hassle and frustration.
I think that Every Executive at Amazon should be given the list of HTML tags that Amazon supposedly supports in Author Central and told to edit the book page description.
Without the aide of anyone.
They should not be allowed to quit until they had implemented a book page with all the tags, OR they decided to put priority on FIXING THE DAMNED THING so it actually works –-AND — updating the documentation so that it described WHAT to do to implement said tags. With pictures and diagrams.
I want the anointed one to witness the editor stripping them out and/or mangling them.
They are allowed to send emails to ask for support with a 24 hour turnaround and to call in anonymously without giving their name so they are treated to the same level of support as us peons “out there”.
I think they should have a special charge number for Editor support and watch how many needless hours are wasted by authors AND Support people that would not be necessary if the DAMNED thing was FIXED and properly documented.
If I need to use <B> or <B> then BY GOSH TELL ME WHAT TO USE!!!
Why do I have to buy a non-Amazon book to use basic features that should be documented?
Heck, if you’re only allowed certain tags, put the darned things on the editor bar (where the bold italics and bullet points are already) and make it simple.
And while I’m at it – WHY THE HECK DOES KDP AND AUTHOR CENTRAL HAVE TWO DIFFERENT SETS OF STUFF THEY SUPPORT?
IS THERE A POWER PLAY GOING ON? CAN”T THESE GUYS TALK?
AND WHY CAN’T I EDIT FROM KDP IF I EVER USE AUTHOR CENTRAL?
Heck, Put a FREAKING button to allow people to select which one they want to use.
ARRRGH!
Ken Rander 