Friday, July 11, 2014

Publishing in Process...
     Well, got the second proof back of The Falls: Summer Nightmare and read through the first 50 pages or so, after scanning each page for visual errors. Only found one mistake...I have Dr. Meg Monroe racing to the hospital early one morning to deal with a situation where a young boy named Pier accidentally shoots his grandfather with a homemade bow and arrow. I have about ten mentions of Pier and then on out of the blue a mention of his name being Pierce! I have no idea where that came from! Our minds do strange things to us at times. And, to be honest, I sometimes now lose the perfect word or two I wanted to use, but if I wait and move on for a minute, it will usually come right back.
     Anyway, I redid the template and the pdf of the template changing the name and resubmitted it to CreateSpace and then sent it for publishing, ordering 3 copies of the finished book to put on my bookshelf. I was asked to fill out a survey this time by CreateSpace and I did so. I found it to be fairly well done and what they wanted to know more than anything else was to find out what I liked and what they could do better. Quite refreshing actually. I was impressed. I finished it along with some very complimentary statements on my experience with the use of their website and sent it in. The only thing I would change, and I told them this, was I would make the covers a bit more flexible. I would like the ability to upload more than one picture for the cover and the ability to move the title and author boxes around on their templates. Other than that...I was quite pleased with the product, the presentation, the ease of use and the quality. I love the high quality paper they use in their books...much nicer than the mass media books. (It does cost though.)
     So, I'm waiting to see the book out on Amazon in a day or two and on Barnes and Noble and other book stores in 2-3 weeks. (They promise 5-6 weeks, but my first one was mush quicker than that.) It is a thrill to see the paperback version out there to buy. I know I probably won't sell a lot of them when the digital version costs only $2.99, but as my friend Kate told me, they are there for the avid fan or reader of the series to own and hold in their hands. They are also now available to people who don't own or use e-readers.
     Now, I'm already working on filling in the template for the third in the series, The Falls: Fall of the Rotten Apples. Truth be told, as I'm going through and editing one more time before cutting and pasting the chapters into the template, I realize that I really like the stories. Who knew? Chuckles. Well, I think all of us are too hard on our work and on our writing in general, always holding ourselves to a higher standard. But, I'm beginning to be a fan of my own work again. I used to be, until it began to become a job rather than just telling stories. Now, I'm getting back to enjoying the stories again because I've learned just enough about the editing, publishing, and advertising parts of the profession to get back to what really matters: the story.
     I'm two-thirds of the way done on The Falls: Boneyard (#16) and am advertising The Falls: Brotherly Love in FB pages at this point. Still waiting to use my stand up/sit down desk. Looking forward to the experience. Keep the faith...and believe in yourselves.
     May the dragons watch over you all... 

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