Dissected Giveaway

Now that things are coming down the line, I've decided to host a giveaway on Goodreads. Click here to enter. I'm giving away two copies. You have to live in US, Canada, UK or Australia to enter. The end date is November 12, which is what I'm hoping is the release date for the book *fingers crossed*.

My proof copies should be coming in the mail today if all goes as planned. I have one person who is going to read one of them as I don't think I can stomach another read of the novel right now. If you're a writer, I think you know what I mean. If you're not a writer, think about reading the same book 20 times in a row. Even if it's your favorite, you'd get sick of it after about the 3rd time.

So, go enter the contest. If you're in the area, expect an invite to the release party soon. I think it's going to be held at Garfield Books at Pacific Lutheran University.

Monkey Madness Monday: Typos, typos, typos!

I'm going crazy. Seriously. I've read this book over and over again. I've had an editor read it. I know that there are people out there who self publish who don't have an editor read their work and this is one of the reason self publishing gets a bad rap. So much self published work it put out unedited.  It's put out with typos and grammar and punctuation problems and turns people off from indie publishing as a whole.

For the life of me, I cannot fathom having missed so much on the first five or six passes. I'm going to get another proof copy after this one. I'm going to make sure the cover is okay then I'm going to have someone else read it for typos in case I missed any. Again. I know that there are traditionally published books out there with typos in them. It's one of the reasons I refuse to read Never Eighteen since its debut. I don't want to find any mistakes. But for my first indie project, I want it to be as flawless as possible. I don't want anyone to say things like, "well, that's what you can expect after all it IS self published" or things of a similar nature.

I admit, when it comes to editing, I'm lazy, but this? The mistakes that are in there? UGH!!! Some of

them are just plain stupid mistakes.

I'm sure every writer in the world will understand when I say, I'm so tired of this book. :)
The next couple days I'm busting these typos out and getting them back to Lori so she can get it formatted again and I can get a proof from Createspace and Lightning source and make sure we're ok again.

Man, this process can be a real bitch. At least I'm learning and hopefully things will go smoother for the next book, which I'm starting to think I should be starting this process for now.

Happy Monday all.

Major work projects and Dissected proof

Man, I have been working on a major major marketing presentation for work for about three weeks now and I'm finally done. It's why I've not been blogging. I've been having to work on it at home as well as work to get it ready for my office retreat which took place last week. Now life is getting back to as normal as my life can, so here I am, blogging again.

I received a proof copy of Dissected in the mail this week from Createspace. Let's just say, I'm glad I ordered just one. The cover came out much darker then I'd anticipated, and you know what else? I found...wait for it...TYPOS!!!

Yes, I found typos. This is nobody's fault but my own. I truly am surprised that I found typos, but there they were, a couple in the first few chapters. So I emailed the truly gracious woman who did my formatting and asked her to please not kill me, but did she mind if I send her more corrections for reformatting. She said she didn't mind, but I can't help but imagine that she was silently cursing me (or perhaps loudly) as she emailed me back telling me it was no problem.

She also told me that many of the covers she's done have come out two or three shades darker than expected, so I redid mine. Lightened it up and even added a little more color so it wasn't so black and dismal. Now I'm rereading the proof to find any other typos that may be lurking behind the pretty formatted fonts and styles.

I truly can see why many books, indie published or traditional, make it to the shelves with mistakes. It's difficult. It truly is, to find every last mistake, no matter how many eyes are on it or how many times you read through it. Humans and computers are simply not perfect. That is not a cop out, nor an excuse for my failings, it is simply a fact. I hope to catch every last error in my novel. End of story.

I'm in the process of setting up distribution so the bookstores may carry the novel. They are having a problem with one of my scanned forms for the second time though. I don't know why. So, I have to try again.

So that's where I'm at. Here is what the book cover looks like now. I'm thinking about adding a gummy bear to the back cover...

Adding to Goodreads

Even though most writers have a love/hate (mostly hate, not me, doesn't bother me much) relationship with Goodreads, I've added my novel, Dissected to its list of books (it's cool to see my book up there). Why you ask? So I can get some pre-publication buzz, and so I can host a giveaway, which I will post next week. And now people can add it to their to-read list. Of course now I'll probably get requests for ARCs which I won't have, but oh well. I may send out some proof copies to bloggers I've worked with before and respected, but not very many as I'll have to pay for those copies.

I've been trying to add the book to Amazon as well, with no luck. I've sent them an email, so hopefully it will be resolved in the next couple of days.

I've also sent it in for formatting, which I'm super excited about. I can't wait to see what it looks like in book form. It's going to be about the same size as Never Eighteen. I think I'll keep all my books about the same size, unless they're just too many pages to do that, but I think Dissected will be around the same word count when I'm done with it.

That's all for today. Have a great Thursday.