a thing that drives me mad
This Friday, I sauntered on down to the nearest branch of my bank with the intent of doing the wire transfer for the second half of the payment for Rita 3 and the omnibus. When I got there, I was told that I couldn’t do it, as East Coast business hours were over and for some unknown reason they won’t do it then. And they won’t even take all the info and do it when East Coast businesses open again; BECU’s employees are apparently locked out of the part of their system that they need to access to do this.
They told me they can’t do it on the weekend, either. And couldn’t do it on Monday because that’s President’s Day, one of those lovely holidays nobody celebrates except banks.
So today - Tuesday - I went out and tried again. And got there just after 1PM. Which meant, once more, that they couldn’t do it. Because they are locked out of that part of their system. I got told that this is apparently because the exchange rates in the currency markets become invalid at the end of East Coast business hours or something like that. Which is pretty maddening when I’m paying an amount set in US$ anyway.
I am left feeling angry and futile, especially because this delay means I’m probably not going to have any books for Emerald City. My books are currently in a warehouse in Chicago, racking up storage fees, until I give my printer a receipt for the wire transfer, and they let it go on to the Amazon warehouse in Illinois they’re destined for. I’m using Amazon to fulfill the Kickstarter orders, and sell future copies; I was going to have them send me a small pile to take to the con.
If ECCC wasn’t so goddamned early this year I’d be fine. But it’s a week earlier than normal. And it’s pricier than ever; I expect the cost of a booth to rise as the con grows, but ever since ReedPop bought it, it’s been going up twice as fast. I’m gonna be spending $500 to sit at a table with my friends and… sell book 1 and 2 at a loss, I guess, to try and at least get some new fans. And probably give out fliers for Rita and Parallax. Which are going to require some scrambling and $$$ to make happen in time.
If the bank would take my fucking wire transfer request and hold it until East Coast business hours re-open, I’d be fine. Close to the wire but fine. But they will not. And I really need to find out who the hell to complain about this to, because I really like a lot of other things about BECU, but this has been a problem every time I’ve had to wire money internationally for printing my books.
I am so fucking sick of self-publishing. There is so much bullshit to deal with when I’d rather just be getting on with the time-consuming but pleasant business of drawing comics.
Originally published at Egypt Urnash. You can comment here or there.