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Archive for the ‘self-publishing’ Category

Giving Birth to a Novel

Posted in self-publishing, tagged , , , , , , on August 19, 2011| 3 Comments »

I just realized how similar it is that at the same time I’m preparing to get this baby out into the world, I’m trying to get this book out into the world as well. This is how similar both processes are:

~Same crazy elation in the beginning. The idea of it all sounding so wonderful. Not truly thinking about how much work was ahead.

~Five months of morning/day/night sickness equal to the painful revision process. I also took two grueling workshops during this time that was as helpful as it was critical.

~As the baby grew so did all the things I needed to read about self-publishing.

~Spending money: factoring in all the things I needed to purchase for my expanding belly and for the needs of the baby and started laying out money for the website/cover/editor/copy editor/book formatter/ISBN’s/review copies…

~Having to lean on others. I haven’t been able to lift things over 20 lbs for a while, I can’t pick much up off the floor, and I can only waddle around so long before I get Braxton Hicks contractions. I’m also at the point in self-publishing where I’m asking more detailed questions on the forums and blogs.

~Starting to get tired. Tired of moving around and also tired of trying so hard to get this book out there. I keep trying to stay focused on the outcome I’m working toward but it is getting pretty hard to feel motivated at this point.

~Worries. The closer I’m getting to my due date/launch date the more I’m getting worried at what’s ahead. I had a baby already and I know exactly what’s to come. How much sleep I’ll get and how much time I’ll have for myself. I’ve also heard how grueling bad reviews can be, how my sales will most likely be few until I can really get noticed somewhere, and how tedious all the self-promotion can be.

~Can’t change things now. This baby/book is going to come out and I’ll just have to try my best to get it out as perfect as I can get it. I can’t keep either thing inside me any longer!

~Letting Go. These two things I’ve been creating for so long–two incredibly important things–I must release into the world. They’re going to go from being safe inside me to starting their own journey; where other people can ultimately ignore or judge them. But hopefully, where some will appreciate and love them the way I have.

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Copy Editor

Posted in self-publishing, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 17, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I can’t wait for this editing to end!

This is all new to me so every step I don’t know what to expect. I was so pleased after working with the editor I chose and part of me wondered if I even needed to use a copy editor. But I listened to all of the most informative self-publishing blogs that insist you must have a quality editor and proofreader before publishing.

So luckily, I found the name of a very reasonable proofreader on one of the forums I frequent. Her website looked fantastic and I liked how she has a review site as well that showcases self-published books. Anyone who wants to support self-publishers like that I want to give my business to.

I gave her my MS on Wednesday and she had it back to me by Sunday night. She even had her partner give it a look through for no extra charge!

I was worried about seeing completely different suggestions the other editor pointed out. I worried I wouldn’t know which editor was right and I’d lose faith in both editors. Well, when I opened up my file I saw the corrections were very infrequent. She changed comma placement, suggested some sentences could be made clearer by removing a few words, found a word I left in by accident when I made my last edits, and made a few editorial comments.

All in all, there was much less corrections than I anticipated. At first I wondered if that meant she wasn’t thorough but then I realized all the improvements she did point out where spot on. So then I realized that this was a great sign. It showed the first editor did a great job and the second editor agreed with her choices.

A few instances she pointed out things I went against the editor with and so I knew I had to change them. But I was very happy to see that the majority of things I did keep (against the first editors recommendations) the copy editor didn’t pick up on. Making me feel much better about going with my gut.

In conclusion, I feel very confident going forward. The fact I’ve had such a thorough and professional editor and then a great copy editor who picked up on the little things we’ve both missed, makes me feel fantastically ready to publish. The copy editor also told me that she and her partner really enjoyed reading my book and couldn’t wait to see what happened next!

I’ll probably do another read through before I send off to the book formatter, who I am still waiting on for a quote. This is all really moving forward so nicely.

PS- Would love to give you the name of the copy editor if you’re looking for one, just ask!

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Back to the ole drawing board…

Posted in self-publishing, writing in general, tagged , , , , , , , on August 15, 2011| 2 Comments »

So in the middle of this whole first self-publishing experience, I’m attempting to get my second novel of the series ready to quickly follow the first.I find myself going back (what feels like so long ago) to the first major edits of my first. So these are the things I’ve learned from so many terrific editing blogs out there:

1) Remove all the ‘just’s you can

2)Remove all the ‘that’s you can

3)Do an ‘ly’ search for adverbs and change them where you can

4) I tend to overuse the word ‘look’ so I do a search for those and change them

6) Tighten up unneeded words

7) Remove all unnecessary dialog tags

8 ) Cut the fat (take out anything that doesn’t move the story forward)

9) Change all ‘has pulled’ to ‘pulls’ or ‘is running’ to ‘runs’, even ‘comes running’ to ‘runs’

I’ve also started to go through all the things I learned from my editor so she doesn’t think I’m a lost cause. My goal is to have a lot less red on the pages with the next one.

It seems a never-ending process though because publishing the second makes me want to finish writing the third book so I can have that follow as well, but I’m only human! How can I be learning self-publishing, promoting, editing the second, AND writing the third! How do these prolific writers do it?

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Where am I?

Posted in self-publishing, tagged , , , , , , , on August 12, 2011| 7 Comments »

(If I was here I would get a lot of writing done)

Okay, I actually had to reread my post that listed all I needed to do before I launched on 11-11-11 and I noticed I left out one step: after the book is formatted I need to pay for a proof. I have to save time for that since I might need to tweak a few things. Also fellow blogger, Holly Grant was so kind to remind me to create a separate bank account in my company name and obtain a tax ID number. So I will have to add that to the list as well. Other than that, everything looks to be included there and just wanted to give everyone an update to where I am now.

~My superstar editor returned the second look through and she went back over every single word. In two weeks! How does she do that? She reiterated some things that I decided against (causing me to ultimately change them) and noticed things she overlooked with all the red all over the page. So my question is, do I need to send this out to a copy editor? I’m shocked with how meticulous my editor has been and with the second edit I feel like this MS is in great shape. But I want this MS to be a perfect as it possibly can and if traditional publishers send their novels through editors and copy editors I probably should too. I wonder if there will be style suggestions that will only confuse me more but the copy editor just might see things the editor missed as she was dealing with the whole mess I sent her originally. Well, I guess we’ll see, I’m sending it off to the copy editor today.

~I’ve contacted my cover designer and asked what I will need to create the POD cover and it seems I will need the page number to measure the spine correctly. So that means I will have to wait until the book formatter has finished before I create the cover. I also have to decide if I want to put my author pic on the back (ugh I hate pictures!) and a little bio (ugh I hate bios even more!).

~I did purchase ten ISBN numbers for this book and all my future books and something feels so great about looking at all the numbers that will one day be my published creations.

~I asked my book formatter if I could send him the almost finished MS just so that he could get a head start on the quote for all ebook formats and POD. If for some reason he is too high for me I want to have some time to find another recommended one. Hopefully the quote will come back within reason since this guy was recommended by a highly respected self-pubber.

~I’m still deciding whether or not I should include the first chapter of my sequel at the back of the first of the series. I posted it up on kindle boards and members brought up so many factors I hadn’t considered. The major issue may be that it’s not that beneficial to include a teaser sample until the sequel is available. A great point, but if I could release the second a couple months behind the first then that could be great hype for the second book; longer than two months, well it might get forgotten about and then I can’t make releasing the sample on my website a big deal. So I sent out the first chapter to be edited anyway and I can use this time to decide what I should do.

~I will contact an attorney relative (they come in handy) to help create an LLC for my publishing house (it sounds like a big deal but it’s not). That way I can publish under that name and if I’m ever famous (psish!) and sued, I will be protected.

~All the while my faithful beta has been reading my sequel and I’ve been making revisions whenever I receive feedback. I can’t forget that this sequel needs to come out as close as possible to the first novel’s launch date. Oh I wish I had a crystal ball for this.

So it looks like I’m making good progress and the baby doesn’t seem to be on its way out just yet, so maybe I can get most of this done before B-day.

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To POD or Not to POD?

Posted in self-publishing, tagged , , , , , , , on August 10, 2011| 6 Comments »

Now that I’m thinking about sending my MS out to the book formatter I’m seriously contemplating if I want go with the POD option. The book formatter’s informed me that the ebooks are fairly simple but the POD formatting is a “whole other beast”. The ebook price is a set fee but he will need to look over the needs of my novel in order to figure out a price. So of course I’m thinking about the necessity of POD and the truth is I doubt that I will sell many more expensive print copies. Most individuals will take a chance on a self-publisher for 99 cents but not $16 for a print copy.

But when I think about only having digital copies and never seeing that physical copy, I feel like it won’t feel real until I hold it in my hands. Is that worth all that extra money and time?

I may buy extra author’s copies and visit local book stores to see if they will consign it. I also noticed that many book reviewers require physical copies sent to them so I would need them for that. Plus, when I was walking on a packed beach and spying on what everyone was reading, I saw most still preferred print. Is it good to have that available even if it won’t be the majority of my sales?

How much will I pay to have that copy on my shelf?

Well, I guess I’ll find out soon.

Oh and on a side note, I just wanted to mention that I put a sample reading up now that my editor handed my MS back. I do have a prologue prior to this that explains where this first chapter begins but I hope you all enjoy it!

 

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Editing: When Should You Stick to Your Guns?

Posted in self-publishing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 29, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Phew! I did it. I sent the corrected MS back to the editor for the second look through. She said she’d have it back to me in two weeks and then I’ll make the changes and ship it off to a second copy editor to make sure we caught everything.

But I didn’t change everything the editor suggested. Most of the time, I immediately saw that her suggestions improved my novel and implemented them, but there were some instances where I realized the change wasn’t right for what I wanted to convey to the reader.

Here are some examples of what I didn’t change:

1) I kept some ‘says’ and ‘continues’ in where I felt needed it, but I did try to take out as many as I could.

2) Some historic things she didn’t find in her research but I found support in more detailed non-fiction books.

3) She wanted to take out unneeded words and I thought it changed the flow or impact of the sentence so I kept them.

4) She made a suggestion to completely remove something that didn’t seem to have much relevance to this novel but it is something that will be mentioned throughout the next few books and explained in the last book.

5) Her suggestions sometimes showed me that she didn’t understand what I was trying to say and told me I needed to clarify the sentence better.

6) Also some of the suggestions she made went completely against some beta readers’ favorite parts. If you hear the same suggestions being made it tells you to change it, but if some of your readers love something I say you should keep it.

All in all, 95% of the time I made the changes. The last 5% I thought over and over about before I decided to keep my words in. But if I send it to the copy editor and she picks up on the same things I didn’t change, well then, I’ll probably make the changes since it’s obviously standing out in the wrong way.

Well, off to enjoy a little summer 🙂

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Historical Inaccuracies, Scene Building, & Plot Holes

Posted in self-publishing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Ugh! I see why it takes a year to print an accepted novel to be traditionally published. I’m still working on this MS and I’ve been working on it every moment I can get! I can’t believe what a tedious process this is. I sympathize with editors since it must feel just as long to go through a novel, looking for every blessed error, and trying to give suggestions to correct them. It must feel twice as torturous to them because it’s not even their story!

So last night I finished all of the easy corrections (wahoo!) but I highlighted any areas the editor flagged for larger changes that I have to still work on 😦

Historical Inaccuracies– My editor was outstanding in that she even looked up all of my historical phrases, places, and objects (there are many!)  and double-checked to be sure I got them right. Some of these suggestions I have to go back into my research and be positive I have support to back me up, but I love the extra confidence that my historic details are strong.

Scene Building Although I thought I worked out all my scene building gaps from suggestions from workshops and beta readers, my editor found a few more areas where she felt a scene or a character needed more description. It’s easy to miss these sparse areas while writing since I have this whole world in my head so clearly that I can’t see where I forgot to guide the reader through. So I have to go back and try to describe what’s already there for me and try to do so in a descriptive and intriguing way.

Plot Holes- *Dum-da-dum-dum!* There are a few instances where my editor pointed out areas where illogical events, unlikely actions of characters, and statements that contradict earlier events in the storyline cropped up. These make my head spin! They are hard to accept because to me it all makes perfect sense, so the trick is that I have to figure out a way to convince the reader that it all makes sense. This means I might have to go back earlier in the story and put in more information to make a development seem more logical. Or I might have to put in some historic information to explain why I have my character act in a normal way for their time but not as likely for our time. Or I have to remove a contradiction or explain why my character is contradicting themselves. And if I can’t do any of these things, then I have to take it out entirely (ouch!) since it will pull the reader out of the book.

I really, really hate this part.

I’m desperately trying to finish all these improvements by tonight so that I can send my editor the MS back before I go away again. This will be my last vacation before the baby comes and it will be nice to get it off for my fabulous editor to complete the last look through. I’m not sure how long that will take but it feels so great putting my novel in her hands. And even though I doubt that she’s overlooked anything, I will still send the returned MS out to another copyeditor to be doubly sure that my book is in the best shape possible.

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Living With A Grammar Disabilty*

Posted in self-publishing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 25, 2011| 8 Comments »

First off–A DISCLAIMER–I’m not an editor nor do I have any editing background. Upon correcting my MS, I see these mistakes highlighted repeatedly by my editor and would like to pass it on to anyone else with grammatical disability*.

(I’m probably making grammatical mistakes even just explaining this to you.)

Like I’ve said before, I have tried…tried to learn how to revise every common mistake new writers make. I’ve read all the blogs on revising advice and I’m still so shocked that there were so many corrections! Well, maybe you can learn from me…hopefully I’m learning something through this all so that I won’t make these same mistakes with my next novel.

 

TOP MISTAKES I’VE MADE:

TOWARDS- I always spoke with a plural on the end of this one…note to self: it is toward.

COMMA BEFORE BUT- I thought it was a general rule that whenever you used but in a sentence, you needed a comma before it but not always so. Only if the group of words following the but is independent the comma is used. (Notice I didn’t use a comma above–there may be hope yet!)

DON’T OVERUSE EXCLAMATIONS! – Whenever my characters were upset, I used exclamations for the whole tangent when I’ve been told it is overkill. Use them sparingly and let your dialogue convey the anger instead.

CUT GARBAGE TAGS- These tags should be used sparingly: says, continues, and finishes.

CUT REDUNDANT ACTION- With actions such as ‘nods his head’ you should always cut out the obvious ‘his head’ since nods is self-explanatory. (I already knew this one but you’d be surprised how they disappear into the text)

NO SPACE AFTER ELLIPSIS- When using an ellipsis in a sentence there is no space between the end of the ellipsis and the next word.

POSSESSIVES- When you put a possessive at the end of a name that ends in an ‘s’ that doesn’t have the hard ‘z’ sound you must add an apostrophe ‘s’ to the ending. Example: Sokarisis’s dream chamber.

OVERUSING ‘THEN’ IN ACTION- My editor pointed out the abundance of ‘then’ in my action sequences and pointed out that it’s better to just allow the action to flow without it.

I HEAR, I FEEL, I SEE- It is extremely hard to resist using these when writing first person present, but as my editor pointed out using these makes someone feel like ‘they’re trapped in a long car ride with someone who is only talking about themselves.” Allow the reader to experience the action outside of the first person’s head as much as possible.

SLIPPING TENSES- I originally wrote my novel in first person past tense, but after a workshop everyone agreed it would feel much more immediate if it was in present tense. I seem to naturally write in past tense so I find whenever I rewrite I slip into past tense again. Thankfully, my amazing editor always found the slip-ups.

SEMI-COLONS AND COLONS- Still haven’t seemed to fully understand when they should be used. I get corrected 50% of the time…will have to study these more.

 

Oh well, that’s about all the grammatical talk I can tolerate. I still can’t fathom how people like my editor can just spot these things so perfectly. I have a feeling my disability has to do with my ADD, since I seem to get so hyper-focused into the story that I can over-look most errors. However, lucky for me, I have a superhero editor who will make it possible for me to self-publish in spite of my grammatical kryptonite.

*Don’t know if grammar disabilities do exist but I’m sure if there was a test, I just might qualify for it.

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Punctuation Disability?

Posted in self-publishing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Well I’m back home from the beach today and so anxious to really dig in and start correcting the suggestions from my editor. Every night I’ve tried to keep my beach-tired eyes open to read some more of her comments. I can’t help but be both super impressed with everything she’s pointed out and also overwhelmed with how much I overlooked after all the revisions I’ve done. I wonder if traditionally published authors have so many things flagged or do I have a punctuation impairment?

I try to assuage my interior editor by remembering that this will improve my finished copy greatly and if I pay special attention to the correction hopefully I’ll learn all that I’m doing wrong for my next book.

My plan is to print out the editor’s copy so that I can check off each correction as I make changes to the only copy I’m working on now (you don’t want to know how many copies I’ve saved so far!). There are some corrections that will take longer such as places where she’s pointed out areas that require more explanation or scene setting as well as asking questions about possible historical inaccuracies that I’ll have to research.

It may take longer than I originally planned but I feel so secure knowing that this editor has done everything she’s promised to further my first novel. If this book had gone out to print after beta reads and only my revisions it would have been a catastrophe. This step is critical for self-publishers to produce quality material and to be taken seriously in the marketplace. It’s just wonderful to know that such thorough freelance editors are out there to help us get there.

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Editor’s Draft Returned!

Posted in self-publishing, tagged , , , , , on July 18, 2011| 1 Comment »

Blogging from the Jersey Shore today and so far I’ve never seen the beach this crowded in my life. Nothing makes me realize that I can’t stand most of human kind like a crowded beach. I read about a study with mice where scientists just kept overcrowding them to see what would happen and they all attacked each other. Well, that’s pretty much what started happening when you pile in way too many people on lava-hot sand, blanket to blanket.I’m hoping today will be much more enjoyable with all the weekenders gone.

Anyway, I was so excited when my editor returned my MS yesterday! She was a few days early and I was biting my nails wondering what kind of an editor she was going to be. My biggest fear was that my MS would come back with a few commas misplaced here and there. I’ve heard that one of the reasons why Amanda Hocking decided to take a publishing deal was to get traditional publishing editors due to her past unsatisfactory freelance editors. She mentioned that even after a couple of good editors looking over her books, readers were still finding errors.

I found this editor through a great recommendation from a member on the Absolute Write Forum and I liked that this editor actually worked for an e-publishing company presently. That made me feel like she’s obviously qualified to edit professional-grade books out on the market so she would be able to get mine to those standards as well.

But, I still worried that maybe somehow this person might not put as much time into freelance work or take it as seriously. Especially since this editor has extremely reasonable rates and promised to not only get it back to me within a month but will do a second once over after I make the corrections.

Well, she was wonderful! She sent me an email explaining some of the big things she felt needed to be changed and explained that she had a style sheet attached to help me understand all of her corrections in the margins. I’ve only glanced over the first few pages and the pages are filled with comments and corrections! Most of them are punctuation misuse, suggestions for tightening, and word repetition. She’s even tried to look up some of the historical facts to be sure I’m 100% authentic to the time periods.

Wow…seriously wow. If you are in need of a wonderful, professional, and reasonable editor I think I’ve found one! (And I will slip you her name for a small fee)

Just kidding, I will pass this good find forward. I can’t WAIT to get home and really start cracking away at it!

PS- I wish I could pay someone to edit my blog 🙂 My grammar and punctuation misuse must burn some reader’s eyes!

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