Self-Editing: Using Your Brain (My First E-Book)

I have published my first e-book: SELF-EDITING: Bringing Out Your Best (Two Half Brains Make a Whole Writer). It’s at Smashwords for $0.99 (free until the end of September, using coupon code HF63Y).

Summary: "For writers in all genres, tips and tricks for (partially) computer-aided editing and for invoking the critical faculties of your logical left brain at just the right time. We’ll use the Find feature to locate predictable problems: 'ly' adverbs, overuse of commas, qualifiers that leech the life from writing. Then on to meatier matters of self-editing: eliminating wordiness, changing passive voice to active, when to show and how best to tell (with specifics, not generalities), subtlety, pacing, etc. Drawn from the presenter’s years of experience in newspaper, magazine, and book writing and editing, this e-book offers nuts-and-bolts advice on fixing common errors."

AN EDUCATION IN E-PUBLISHING

From this venture into e-publishing, I’ve learned several things:

It’s really difficult to control the look of an e-book. On my NOOK (in .epub format) my Self-Editing book looks great. All the block quotes and examples are properly indented and set off from the body of the text, and they are in the same size type as for the body, and thus they’re easy to read.

But when the book is viewed in a Web browser (in HTML) the block quotes are rendered in tiny type that’s almost impossible to read.

I can’t control the format that people choose to view, but I can recommend an e-book reader that gives digital books (.epub) a more pleasing configuration:

Adobe Digital Editions (http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/) is free, it’s easy to use, and it faithfully preserves an e-book’s original formatting (including any clickable, embedded hyperlinks).

ONE DOWN, MORE TO GO

Cover art copyright (c) 2011 by David R. Davis

I hope I sell some copies of my new e-book, but my primary purpose is to get experience with the Smashwords.com publishing interface so I’ll feel confident about publishing FOUR STAR FUNERALS, an anthology written by the members of my critique group. They are counting on me to get it right, and I’m finding that this e-publishing business can be simple (when you’re publishing your own work) but complicated when you’re acting as the publisher for other writers.

Smashwords offers a wordy document that purports to explain the process of “upgrading” to Publisher status. What it says about “ghost” accounts baffles me.

It also warns me: “DO NOT upgrade your account to Publisher status unless you plan to immediately publish two or more authors on Smashwords.”

Well, darn. That means I don’t get to practice it before I actually do it.

I shall persevere, however. This isn’t rocket science.

For now, I must settle down with the manuscript of FOUR STAR FUNERALS and reread my contributions to the anthology. It’s always best to proofread before publishing.

THANKS TO DAVID R. DAVIS

My thanks to David Davis for both covers: my SELF-EDITING book, and our collective FOUR STAR FUNERALS. I have no idea how to create e-book covers. I’m lucky to be able to call on David’s artistic talents.

Publishing: Me, My Team, and DIY

Today marks the one-month anniversary of me engaging the services of the Accurance Group to do interior formatting, cover design, POD paperback setup and distribution, and e-book conversion and distribution, for my WATERSPELL fantasy trilogy.

What have we accomplished since August 15?

• All three covers are done (see them in the column at right). I’m very pleased with the covers, and I continue to get compliments on them.
• I’ve seen and proofread (well, actually, my husband proofread) galley proofs of WATERSPELL Book 1: The Warlock (384 pages), and Book 2: The Wysard (440 pages).

A GLITCH IN THE GET-ALONG

The first run of galley proofs looked good except they were missing all the front matter (copyright page, dedication page, Contents, and epigraph). I took the opportunity, via Accurance’s “Galley Edits & Corrections Sheet,” to point out the oversights.

They did an excellent job then, incorporating the front matter in the second run of galleys. So when I sent them my final tweaks—a few minor refinements to the front matter and the “About the Author” page at the back of the book—I expected “my team” to whip out those changes in no time, and give me a finished set of error-free galleys, in PDF form.

But oops! They apparently entrusted my final tweaks to a newbie on their text-formatting team. The newbie had the temerity (or the poor judgment) to make changes where I had not indicated or authorized any. The most serious transgression was the newbie’s unilateral decision to drop the blank book-page that separated the Prologue (page 1) from the first page of Chapter 1. The dropping of the blank page (page 2) caused all of the pages from there to the end to be mis-numbered—out of sync with the page numbers on the Contents page.

Even sillier, the newbie added a page header to the top of the Prologue and on the first page of Chapter 1. She or he should know enough about book design to know that a chapter's opening page carries no running head.

So instead of having, in my possession, a finished set of error-free galleys for Book 1, I’ve sent back a third “Galley Edits & Corrections Sheet.” I’m hoping the production department will assign my original text-formatting team-member, and not allow the newbie to get anywhere near my books.

WORRIES ABOUT UNAUTHORIZED CHANGES TO THE TEXT

The only reason I’m blogging about this (relatively minor) snafu is that it makes me wonder: If changes like those I just described can be made in my book, without my authorization or permission, is there a possibility of more serious errors being introduced on pages that I have already proofread and approved?

The prospect makes my veins run ice. It is not physically or mentally possible to personally proofread every new output of 400-page galley proofs, looking for errors that creep in while my back is turned.

However, I believe I see a solution. When I finally receive a finished set of galley proofs, I can copy-and-paste the text from those PDFs into a new Microsoft Word document. I can then Compare Documents, comparing my original book file against Accurance’s text-formatting output, to assure myself that no creepy errors slipped in, between rounds of galley-edits.

A GUIDE FOR DIY:
Tricks, Tactics, and Techniques from Published Authors: Thoughts on Traditional vs. E-book Publishing

When I first engaged the services of the Accurance Group, I committed myself to blog about the experience—the good, the great, the frustrating, or whatever I may yet encounter. My purpose in chronicling the entire process is to allow you, my fellow independent authors, to decide for yourself if you want to hire some help with your publishing ventures, or you want to do it all yourself.

If you decide to go solo, an excellent quick-start guide is Tricks, Tactics, and Techniques from Published Authors: Thoughts on Traditional vs. E-book Publishing, a brand-new e-book by my very well-published friends Jan Peck and David Davis.

Tricks includes information on and links to the major digital publishing services: Smashwords, Kindle Direct Publishing, CreateSpace, Lulu, and Barnes & Noble PubIt.

(Lightning Source is not mentioned, but it’s the POD service I plan to use. I’ll report on it when I’ve got firsthand experience with LSI.)

Tricks also includes fascinating facts about the current state of the publishing world, with information about traditional publishing, and when and why you might want to consider going that route.

The book will save you days—possibly weeks—of searching the Web for information on your publishing options. I recommend it highly, as a quick but comprehensive overview of what’s out there for writers who are ready to take matters into their own hands.

For me, I knew that between updating my various websites, taking on various (paying) freelance-writing assignments, finishing WATERSPELL Book 3: The Wisewoman (which I plan to release next spring)—and maybe even taking a few days of vacation this fall, for a rest-break that I believe I’ve earned—I would not have time to properly e-publish WATERSPELL in strict DIY fashion.

And so I hired the Accurance Group. So far, I’m glad I did. Despite the occasional glitch, they are saving me loads of time and effort.

Stay tuned: My e-publishing adventure will continue.

Steps to Publication #5: Proofing Galleys and Cover Art

Three things occupy my thoughts this morning. I’ll take them in order.

Tricks, Techniques, and Tactics from Authors Jan Peck and David Davis

Yesterday at the North Texas SCBWI chapter meeting, Jan Peck and David Davis gave a concise, knowledgeable, and highly useful overview of the state of publishing today. Besides describing their own steps to publication, starting in such periodicals as Comic Buyers Guide and the Dallas Morning News, and onward through their current status as star authors at Dial Books (Penguin/Putnam), Simon & Schuster, and Sterling Publishing, Jan and David presented an in-depth look at the industry-changing explosion in indie publishing and e-books. Their handout (worth its weight in gold, which is really saying something, considering that gold now sells for $1,800 an ounce) is posted at The Jan Peck/David Davis Publishing Link Sheet.

A lively discussion ensued, and when I saw my chance to join it, I threw in a few words about avoiding the temptation to throw rough drafts up on the Internet. The speed of publishing, online and electronically, can be intoxicating, especially to those of us who have lots of experience with the sad old routine of “send in your manuscript, then wait a year or six months” for a reply. It can be oh, so tempting, to e-publish and be damned.

But running a rough draft through the Smashwords meat-grinder is a very bad idea. E-publishing one’s unpolished prose can do considerable damage to a writer’s reputation. It is ALWAYS worth the time, to take the time to polish up a manuscript, to make it the best it can be.

I’ve posted several practical how-tos:

• Self-Editing: Two Half Brains Make a Whole Writer (an 11-part series on finding and fixing common mistakes in writing, based on a college-level program I presented)
• Critiquing Common Writing Errors (from an excellent handout I got at a conference, years ago)
• Too Subtle? Too Obvious? (finding and walking the fine line between telling too much and telling too little)

Thank you again, Jan and David, for a great program. I was already excited about my indie publishing adventure, and now I can hardly wait to get WATERSPELL out there.

Book 1: First Galley Proofs

Eager though I am to release WATERSPELL Books 1 and 2, I mustn’t lose my focus on quality. Gene has finished proofreading Book 1: The Warlock and declares it error-free. Today I’m going to skim quickly through the first galley proofs, making sure the poems and other bits that require special treatment (indentation, italics) have been properly handled.

Then, on the Contents page, I’ll assign page numbers alongside the chapter titles. Using the Accurance.com “Galley Edits—Corrections Sheet,” I’ll specify the placement of the copyright page, dedication, Contents, epigraph, and author bio. By Monday evening, this first run of galley proofs should be ready to return to Dwight, the production manager at Accurance.

Book 3: First Cover Proof

I’m also mulling over changes to the first draft of the Book 3 cover, shown here. I believe the dolphin is too large, and I’d like to see more contrast between it and the background.

Here’s what I’ll request:

• Move the dolphin to the right so that its dorsal fin is almost centered against the background, and make the dolphin smaller, as necessary, so that its snout/face overlaps the silver frame only about as much as the red-and-gold book overlaps its frame on #8916.
• The splashes of water are great—perfect! Can you add another splash or two under the dolphin’s snout, to provide more contrast against the dark-blue background?
• Within the silver frame, change the sky-and-sea background to a golden sunset. There’s an excellent example at http://sandeep.pixelring.net/photoblog/images/20080914132754_dsc02610_small.jpg (minus the human silhouette, of course).

FOUR STAR FUNERALS

ISBN 978-0-9728768-2-7 (E-book)

Cover art copyright © 2011 David R. Davis
All rights reserved

I said I had three things on my mind this morning, but actually I have four. I’m also trying to master the ridiculously long “Smashwords Style Guide” so I can successfully e-publish an anthology written by the Four Star Writers of my critique group. More on this venture, later.

Right now, I gotta get to work!