I'm typing up my changes as we speak. And honestly, I was too lazy to finish finding my typos last night. I didn't want to, then a friend of mine, Robert Leland Taylor pushed me to do it. So I did. He has a book out, he's very funny. You should go buy it.
Anyway, when I do copy edits again, I'm going to do them hard copy, like I did with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. I'm finding way too many mistakes. We did them with "track changes" on Word and I think I got lazy. I'm not a good monitor editor. Put a piece of paper in front of me though, and I'm on it.
Plus, you catch other stuff. I had inconsistencies, and other things in the novel that made me scratch my head. Indie writers hear this, make sure your shit is edited!!!
yeah, I just needed this one.
If I had put this book out as is, I would have been raked over the coals. This proof is the epitome of what everyone probably expects a self published book to be. Riddled with mistakes. Ugh.
And time is going by so fast, as this point, I'm praying I can meet my new planned release date of the
end of October. We'll see once I get these typed up and off to Lori and what her turn around time is, then it's a matter of getting another proof from Createspace, one from Lightning Source, then we're off!
Okay, day job calls. I have to go in early because I'm getting a washer and dryer delivered today. No more having to go to the parents, I finally broke down and bought a pair.
At least that's how it feels when you're trying to find typos. And when you're finding typos, you also find other stupid little mistakes that I hope Lori doesn't mind changing (nothing big Lori, I promise, just little crap).
As I read this book, I know I love it, I think the writing is good (if any of my betas want to pipe in here, feel free to back me up), but I'm soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo sick of it. I'm getting close to being done though. I have a Saturday soccer tournament with a long break between games that I'm hoping will put the nail through the coffin and end this thing.
And then I get to move on. Finally. To UPC codes and another proof copy. And then I think we're set. I think. Or not. We'll see.
Yes, so I'm setting up a website for my indie publishing company. Well, I have two companies really because I have a mother company. Creative Chaos Media (site is currently under construction). Then under that company I'm going to have imprints because this brain of mine holds not only YA literature, but chick lit and other genres of fiction. For now, I'll have one, Sock Puppet Press.
I was trying to create my own logo for CCM, but my Illustrator skills are very rudimentary. I found this company, Logoytypers, who will create a logo for you for as little as $10 from just a drawing. They do have different packages. (I paid $30 and added a little to my editable logo) If you're looking for a simple logo design, you may want to give them a look.
Also, I'm still working on finding all the typos in my proof copy, and believe me, there are more than I thought there would be. Therefore, I'm fine tooth combing it. I'm hoping to really dig into it this weekend and get it done and get another proof back soon. Ugh. I'm a horrible editor I've found.
That said, I'm afraid I'm going to have to push my release date back again. I think realistically I'm looking at October. sigh. I hope my Indiegogo backers will understand.
This whole process has been educational. When I do get my website up, I'm going to lay out the indie publishing process so it's easy to understand to make it easier for others to go about getting themselves published and to get the most polished, professional book they can produced.
That is all. Happy Friday, have a great weekend.
Friday Scribbles:
Pandora Queue: Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol
Book of the Week: 45 Pounds (more or less) by K.A. Barson. This just released this week. New YA, touted by Amazon as being one of the best of the year and I really want to read it.
Netflix of the Week: Sons of Anarchy Season One. Just started watching it. Pretty hooked.
Quote of the week:"Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader
something to look for so they aren't distracted by the total lack of
content in your writing." ~ Randy K. Milholland
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.
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...
I finally finished my rewrite of An Unbalanced Line. But I'm not done. I made some notes on the manuscript along the way, which I want to fix, then I print it out and read it aloud. Reading aloud helps me get the voice and dialogue right and it also is useful for finding little mistakes, typos, punctuation problems. Then I do revisions. The step after that, I get some beta readers. I usually pick four or five people. A couple readers, a couple writers, and I have one friend who is a writer and an excellent editor. After that, I do another set of revisions, then maybe another. I do as many as it takes to get it to a place that I feel is good enough to send to agents. How do you get feedback on your work? Who do you count on to give an unbiased opinion? Do you read aloud? I'm interested in other writer's process.
