Publetariat

Editor’s Note: With this post, Shaun Kilgore joins Publetariat’s roster of regular Contributors.

Today, I thought I would pull out some articles that I’ve found on the topic of schedules. There are definitely some different ways to approach the subject. What it comes down it is finding one that works for you.

All of you know that each writer has their own unique writing habits. I know that none of this is original thinking. In fact, I’m sure most of you already have some type of schedule in place to help you get writing done each day. This doesn’t mean that the method you’re using is getting you the results you’ve hoped for.

Perhaps, you are considering a change in your writing schedule and would appreciate another perspective. I hope these posts will offer you some guidance. Thanks for reading.

Four Approaches

1. Creating A Writing Schedule That Works For You – Yuliya Geikhman (Associated Content)

2. How To Create A Writing Schedule – lolaness (eHow)

3. How To Stick To Your Writing Routine – Ashley Sinatra (Associated Content)

4. How To Make A Writing Schedule And Stick To It – Online Writing Tips (blog)

What Else?

Now, I’m sure you’ll find some overlap in some of the advice and tips included in these different articles, but that shouldn’t be a deterrent. Not at all. There are just some things about setting up a writing schedule that are common to any writer. It is only the fine details that will vary from person to person.

I’m still trying to discover the perfect schedule for me. I think I’ve dabbled in a variety of approaches because I am always trying to make one flexible enough to meet the demands of child care obligations. Being a stay-at-home dad is tough all on its own. Little children have a hard time understanding a writing schedule if they understand it at all. With time, I know they will more, but in the meantime, I have to do what works – and make up the difference in other ways.

All of this is to say that schedules really are an important part of having a good writing career. They will help you attain your goals and meet your deadlines. Without them, you may find that time slips away from you so quickly. If you haven’t established your own schedule, then do it now. Don’t wait another moment. Your thank yourself later.

Again, thanks for reading. If you have any other approaches to scheduling, could you pass them on here by leaving a comment. See you next time.

This is a cross-posting from Shaun C. Kilgore‘s blog. 

Today is my friend’s birthday. It’s a very special day for her. So I’m not gonna ruin it. Haha. My friend’s name is Hershey. Nice name isn’t it? Just like the hershey chocolate. This friend of mine is very sweet. Sometimes moody but fun to be with. I’m thankful that I met her. Anyway. As for her birthday she is planning on celebrating it on a Bar. She wants to drink with us. Some laughing, singing and bonding. I’m sure it will be a great night. A really great night. A night that we will never forget for the rest of our lives. After her celebration with us she plans to celebrate it with her family. A swimming pool party perhaps. She loves to swim even if she didn’t know how to swim. She wants me to accompany her because she’s going to buy pool supplies for the pool. It’s her birthday so I can’t reall complain. It’s a great pleasure that she did not forget us in her birthday celebration. Hershey is one of my true friends. I will treasure her for the rest of my life.

Wello, hello again. I seem to have found my way back after an absence of several months.  There was some travel involved. We dodged some tornadoes in Arkansas, some tandem Semi rigs in OK City, then made it home intact. 

March surprised us by throwing sunshine and warm temperatures for a couple of weeks, but now we’re back to the same old tiresome month we know and love.

I’ve been working on the sequel novel to the Red Gate as well as writing a few short stories to keep my hands active.  I entered The Red Gate into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards contest and was encouraged when it made the first cut, but…it didn’t make the second. Possibly because I entered it into YA to see if it would fly there. I’d had some encouraging feedback from younger readers, but the conditions for YA are pretty specific regarding the age of the MC.  15-19 years old is the target age.  My MC was 26.

I’ve also given a lot of thought to new ways to market my writing.  One of the ideas I had, has to do with pulling a chapter out of a novel, re-writing it into a stand-alone short story, then entering it into short fiction contests to get a little notice for the book.  I’ve also entered three other contests with other short stories I worked on during my hiatus.  If any of this comes to fruition, I’ll pass it along in a future Curmudgeon installment.

Meanwhile, I’ll go check up to see if any of my bookstores need inventory and get myself in the mood for Spring. 

This post, from RJ Keller, originally appeared on her Ingenious Title To Appear Here Later blog on 11/21/09.

Friday night, I was told by an author I’d never heard of that her ultimate goals when she began writing were to see her book in a bookstore and to sell a lot of books. She further informed me that because her book had found an agent and a publisher and was now sitting in a bookstore that it was a “real” book. My book, not falling into that category, is – naturally – not “real.”

[Editor’s note: strong language after the jump]

I wanted to tell her that my ultimate goal when I began writing was to write a good book. An awesome book. A book that, when people read it, they’d say, “I have felt exactly this way before! I thought I was the only one!” Or, “I stayed up all night reading this, even though I had to go to work early in the morning.” I might have even wanted it to make people cry, to make them think about things in a way they’d never done before, or to look at people in a way they’d never done before.

I wanted to point her in the direction of postive reviews I’ve received, and send her copies of emails I’ve gotten from readers, stating that my book had accomplished exactly those things. I wanted to send her the link to this post, affirming that my book is, indeed, a real book. Then I Googled her name and learned about her book. That’s when I wanted to tell her that the only reason an agent had picked it up and had been able to sell it to a publisher is because it’s a cookie cutter of about 1000 other books already out there, which means it’s not considered a risk. I also wanted to tell her to stuff it (okay, I wanted to tell her to fuck off). 

Read the rest of the post on Ingenious Title To Appear Here Later.

This is a great example of fantastic book marketing! “Wired for War” by P.W. Singer is not my type of book and I haven’t read it myself, but my husband saw a review, visited the website and bought it immediately. I was curious to see how he made a decision so quickly to buy a book. You may not agree with the subject of this book, but it is a case of perfectly directed marketing.

Here are some lessons we can all learn from this book:

• Identify and know your target market. If you get 100 men in a room, how many of them are interested in talking about war machines and robots? Probably quite a few! This book has a target audience of techy men only. No one else would even be interested, but that group are totally into this subject. The first chapter is entitled “Why a book on robots and war?” and the first line “Because robots are frakin’ cool”. That says it all! If you have a book that a market will definitely buy, you just need to tell them you are there (and that is marketing!)
   
• Get reviews online where your target market are hanging out. Many authors aim to get reviews on book review websites and from literary critics in print media. If you have a non-fiction book, you are better off aiming for websites where your target market are. Most readers don’t actually hang out on book review sites, and particularly not techy men. Singer got reviews on Gizmodo.com, SlashDot (news for nerds) and Robotics.com as well as The Financial Times, traditional media and The New Scientist.
   
• Become a multimedia presence. Singer has videos of himself as well as print and internet reviews. You may not make it onto TED or The Daily Show, but you can make a video and put it on YouTube and embed it on your website. You can record some audio, get some blog posts online and be multimedia in no time! Meet people where they are, and people find books through all different media.
   
• Establish an excellent, but basic, website for free or cheap. I don’t know the details of who built Singer’s website, but it is built on Joomla, which is free software and easy to customise. I use WordPress, but Joomla is definitely recommended for people who want an easy to set up and maintain website. This is a basic website, but very effective and to the point.
   
• Make it easy to buy your book. There is a link to Buy the book on every page of the site.
   
• Engage your readers. I had to sit through a number of the videos of “cool war robots” such was the enthusiasm this website aroused in my husband. It also has interesting polls, pictures, a discussion topic page and even a playlist of appropriate war-related tunes to listen to as you read.
   
• Be an expert. This is specifically for non-fiction authors, but Singer is obviously a master in his field. His bio demonstrates how much of an expert he is in this area and he has 2 previous books behind him. He is also passionate about this topic, and the book is also packed with references and technical knowledge. The book is excellent quality (if you like those kind of books!) so it is not a triumph of marketing over content, but more a case of a great book being extremely well marketed.

This book is published by Penguin, and Singer has a professional publicist behind him, but there are many authors who don’t achieve such a pervasive online presence. Other published and self-published authors can certainly learn a lot from this example.

This is a reprint from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn site.

The pageviews have been counted, the finalists’ blogs and sites have been given the once-over by Publetariat founder and Editor in Chief April L. Hamilton, and the results are in.

All seven finalists’ entries generated a lot of interest on the site. All received over 140 unique pageviews during their first seven days posted on Publetariat, and all of them were linked and tweeted repeatedly on the web. In short, every one made a fine showing. 

And after seeing this, along with the quality work being done on all of the finalists’ blogs and sites, Editor in Chief April L. Hamilton has decided to invite every one of the finalists to become a regular Publetariat Contributor. (Finalists, she’ll be emailing you details in the coming week.) So congratulations to all the finalists, and here’s hoping you’ll be seeing more of their fine work here on Publetariat soon.

Here are the finalists, in ascending order of unique pageviews each article received in its first seven days posted to Publetariat:

Shaun Kilgore – Why I Started A Publishing Company – 144 unique pageviews

Virginia Ripple – Success Feels Like Failure – 145 unique pageviews

Fay Risner – Preparing For A Book Sale – 165 unique pageviews

J.D. Sawyer – If You Build It, Will They Come? – 186 unique pageviews

Edward G. Talbot – Publishing In the 21st Century: Are The Best Things In Life Really Free? – 251 unique pageviews

PJ Kaiser – Surprise Endings: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – 259 unique pageviews

M. Louisa Locke – How To Be Your Own Best Editor, Pt. 1 – 279 unique pageviews

The three top finalists are Edward G. Talbot, PJ Kaiser and M. Louisa Locke. All three of them will receive one year of VIP registration in both curricula at Publetariat’s sister site, Vault University, beginning next month. 

The winner is M. Louisa Locke, who will also receive a signed copy of April L. Hamilton’s upcoming book from Writer’s Digest, "The Indie Author Guide: Self-Publishing Strategies Anyone Can Use", when it’s released in November of this year. 

Thanks to everyone who entered, and to everyone who voted with their pageviews. 

[Note: pageviews were originally transposed between entries from Edward G. Talbot and J.D. Sawyer, indicating J.D. Sawyer received the third-highest pageview count. This error has been corrected, and as compensation for the error, J.D. Sawyer will also receive a year’s VIP registration in both curricula at Vault University]

I am in the process of readying a collection of short stories for online publication. The stories are literary, and focus on one character (a young boy) over the course of a year. I hope readers connect with these stories emotionally. If not, I failed to hit what I was aiming at.

I will be posting the collection first on Smashwords. I have decided that I will not be posting the collection for free, but rather will be setting a price. I do intend to allow readers to sample the collection to demonstrate that I can, at the very least, carry a tune.

The question before me now is what the price should be. It’s a question everyone is wrestling with, so I don’t feel alone in my consternation. Whatever your feelings about the fluctuating price of gasoline over the past few years, at least there’s a constantly-updated market price for that product. If I was trying to unload a gallon of gas right now I’d know where I stand. Twelve literary short stories? Not so much.  

A big part of the problem is that I’m not selling an object, but an experience written by someone who is not famous. Another factor is that the experience I’m selling has pretensions to art, or at least sober craft. In order to determine the price of such nebulous goods, markets tends to rely on abstract consumer sentiments such as personal taste and cultural appeal, rather than functional utility. For these and other reasons I’m obviously going to have to make a series of assumptions in order to set a price.

I do know that every aspect of pricing — every possible permutation of every possible permutation — has been studied to theoretical completion. I also know I don’t have time to learn about all that, so instead I’m going to fly by the seat of my pants.

Mark twirls the propeller on his beanie and by god lifts off the ground!

Over the course of this week I will be exploring the pricing question with several brain-dump posts on various aspects of the problem. I genuinely do not have any idea what the price of this collection should be, and I find myself as intrigued by that fact as I am by the prospect of having people read (it not also buy) my work.

If you have any thoughts on the subject I would be grateful if you would share them. What would you charge? As a content consumer, do you have a positive or negative response to various price points? Although Smashwords is an e-book only site, product can flow from Smashwords to other online retailers, who may in turn kick out a print-on-demand version. How much does posting the work on Smashwords affect your feeling about what the price should be?

At the very least I think I should know something about the pricing of print books as well as e-books, if not also any price relationship between the two. On that basis alone this conversation will necessarily be rolling and wide open. Feel free to chime in [in the comments section for the original post, on Ditchwalk].

This is a cross-posting from Mark Barrett’s Ditchwalk site.

While self-published authors in the USA have been enjoying the benefits of having a free dedicated Author Page of their own for the past few months, Amazon UK have only just launched the feature this side of the big pond over the past weekend.

While Amazon have been busy loading  thousands of pages for illustrious authors like Stephanie Meyers, Dan Brown, Ian McEwan and Neil Gaiman; self-published authors in the UK and Ireland can now easily go about creating their own pages. 

Amazon Author Central

This is a cross-posting from Mick Rooney’s POD, Self-Publishing and Independent Publishing blog.

Temps close to 40 or 50 degrees, more brown grass with a tinge of green showing in the lawn, sparrows quarreling and crows cawing. A sign that it’s really spring is when I see a robin. Six flew into the hayfield this last week. Another sign is when the two doe deers come back to the wooded area by the creek to have their fawns. They’ve migrated back two years in a row. Hopefully, they get to come again this year if they didn’t become the target of a hunter. The hens are laying eggs and enjoying being loose to scratch in the cold, damp ground. I’ve started going to the barn to check our sheep and goats. We had two lambs born Monday and already I’m bottle feeding them. My garden is under a mountain of snow that grows smaller each day. That didn’t stop me from planting tomato and pepper seeds in a container. The tomatoes are up. In April, last year I set out five tomato plants under gallon milk jugs. I’m going to try that again. You might say I have spring fever. Happens every year about this time. That’s why I could write a story about Gracie Evans having spring fever. I know just how she’d feel.

In The Chance Of A Sparrow, Gracie Evans wants to leave town life for awhile to spend some time on her farm. She’s making herself sick just thinking about missing spring in the country. Her wish comes true. The man who rents her farm asks her to farm set while he takes his wife and daughter to visit his mother-in-law. Everything that could go wrong on the farm does.

A missing neighbor’s clothes are found on Gracie’s pond dam. Her land borders the missing neighbor who has been feuding with another farmer. She’s walking in the timber when someone shoots at her. A cow takes a dislike to Gracie after she calves. Gracie gets locked in the outhouse for hours. An old boyfriend keeps showing up to help her out and stays for supper as his payment. Gracie is uncomfortable with striking up a friendship with him again. All that and I’ve just touched the tip of Gracie’s problems at Tree Oaks farm. Things get so bad Gracie is vowing to be careful what she wishes for from now on if she’s going to be unlucky enough to get her wish.

Next week, my blog will be an excerpt from The Chance Of A Sparrow ISBN 1438248725.

Update on my entry in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest. I didn’t make the first cut. In a way that’s all right. I was anxious to see my manuscript in book form. As soon as I found out I was free to publish I did and now the book is for sale on amazon, ebay and my bookstore www.booksbyfaybookstore.weebly.com. The Rainbow’s End – Nurse Hal Among The Amish Series-book 2 – ISBN 0982459521

This post, from Fay Risner, originally appeared on her Booksbyfay blog in September of 2009 and is reprinted here in its entirety with her permission. This is Fay’s entry in our anniversary contest, in which the winners are selected based on total unique page views. So if you like it, and would like to see Fay become a regular Publetariat Contributor, spread the word and the link!

Friday, Civil War Days begins in Belle Plaine, Iowa. I’m going to sell my books in the park on the fringes of North versus south battles. So am I ready?

I’ve watched the weather forecasts. Looks like perfect days for having a table full of books outside. To help the customers visually see what kind of books I write, I made place cards that states the genre to place by each pile of books. It would be a good thing if the wind wasn’t too strong, or I will spend time chasing those place cards down. Also, the bookmarkers I printed that list my inventory and address for future reference.

I’ve been doing a mental list in my head this morning. It has taken a lot of preparation for this three day event. I’ve got an aluminum folding table left over from my craft sale days. (Those craft sales are where I learned some salesmanship.) An Indian blanket for a table cover, doesn’t go along with the Civil War but in that century. Dressing in a pioneer dress and wearing a bonnet should give me some attention. (How did I come by a pioneer dress and bonnet?

I revamped a dress and sewed the bonnet years ago when I volunteered at Usher Ferry in Cedar Rapids. I was spinning in a one room log cabin as the woman who lived there. When visitors came in, I had to tell them about my life. It was fun to act the part.) I still have my money box from craft show days (a small fishing tackle box). It’s perfect with a top divided shelf for change and the bottom for bills. I bought a mesh folding chair with a canopy top so I wouldn’t have to sit in direct sunlight. Haven’t had it out of the bag to see if I can set it up. Every time I buy something in a bag or box that needs put together, I’ve found it a struggle to put the object back in the bag. So guess I’ll wing putting the chair together in the park after I have the table set up.

After some fall house cleaning, I found a four by four poster board upstairs to use for a sign to lean against the table. This advertisement shows that I am a local person. That might help get me some interest if not sales. So I printed large banners and tacked them to the poster board. The sign reads Keystone Author Fay Risner – Book Sale – Featuring – Ella Mayfield’s Pawpaw Militia . On each side of the Book Sale line was a blank space so I put a picture of my book cover on one side and a Confederate Flag on the other. That definitely states which side of the war I’m on. Figured I might as well join. You can’t hear it in my writing, but I have a southern accent. That would be a dead give away if I tried to join the Union forces. They might shoot me for a spy.

I have no idea where I am to set up. The man I talked to said I could be by a building where reenactors sell their wares. Guess someone will point me in the right direction.

Friday is the day the schools bring students to learn about the Civil War. I wanted to be a part of that education. Besides, a presentation will go along with my book. So I made up another poster board. While the reenactors will be talking military feats, I will be discussing Bushwhackers and Jayhawkers. A time line of the border war between Kansas territory and Missouri is on the poster. A large Missouri map dominates the board with stars for important places and Vernon County drawn in so the children can see where my history comes from.

I won’t have anyone to watch my table and I don’t know how far it will be to the concession stand. I baked an apple cake. That will be meals and snacks plus I’m taking a large container of ice tea.

My husband isn’t so sure all this stuff will fit in my small car. Best be prepared. Today I pack the car just to see how is the best way to fit everything in. It will be good to have that much done. I’ll have to get an early start to be set up before 9 a.m.

No matter what, this will be a fun experience going back in time amid the smell and explosions of gunpowder, war cries and crowd appreciation of the battles. Lincoln will give his Gettysburg Address, a church service will be held under the open sky and much more. I can’t wait to get there.

——————————————————————————–

Here’s the follow-up post, recapping the results of the sale.

This post, from Virginia Ripple, originally appeared on her The Road to Writing blog on 3/6/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with her permission. This is Virginia’s entry in our anniversary contest, in which the winners are selected based on total unique page views. So if you like it, and would like to see Virginia become a regular Publetariat Contributor, spread the word and the link!

Last Sunday I had a wonderful thing happen in my absence at church. My mother (who is one of my biggest fans ) took my book to her Sunday school class and, for lack of a better description, “marketed” it. Before the class was over there was a volunteer to write up an article for the church newsletter. Before the worship service that follows Sunday school concluded, the minister was informed of my book. He said that, if the person who volunteered to write the article hadn’t, then he would have. From there it’s supposed to make it’s appearance at the next monthly elders’ meeting. It seems that things are beginning to roll for Fear Not! Discovering God’s Promises for Our Lives.

So why does it all feel like I’ve failed?

It’s because of the POD stigma. As soon as someone says, “Congratulations on getting your book published!” I ask myself if I deserve the congratulations. Surely I do. I worked as hard putting together a book I’m proud of as a straight A university student does to stay on the Dean’s list. (I even “pulled an all-nighter” a time or two. )

Then comes the question, “Who published it?” I answer honestly that it was published by Lulu, but I don’t always add that it’s a large self-publishing company. That bothers me. Afterall, I’m a trail-blazer like all the other Indies out there.

I’ve been thinking about it all week and I have an idea why writers are stigmatized more so than any other Indie. We’re the customer who jumps into the “just opened” line at the store before anyone else realizes it’s open. The traditionalists are upset at themselves for not venturing outside the status quo. The good news is that there are traditionally published authors such as Stephen King, Douglas Rushkoff, and Douglas Clegg who are now jumping into self-publishing, according to M.J. Rose in the article Self-Publish Stigma Is Perishing.

On the flipside, Rose says there are also Indie authors being signed on to traditional publishing houses after their book breaks the 5,000 and 10,000 sales mark. That’s a very good reason to start out as a self-publisher. Of course, as Ray Robinson points out in his article Self Publishing Stigma, unless you do everything you can to market your book you’ll be lucky to end up in the 6% who break even. That’s why having a marketing strategy and doing as much research on marketing techniques is so important (and a subject for yet another post ).

There are a lot of reasons why achieving success as an Independent Author can sometimes feel like failure. Most of those boil down to letting the ubiquitous “other” make us feel unworthy of the title Author. I hope that someday we’ll all be able to throw off our cloaks of undeserved shame and walk in the sun of success on The Road to Writing.

When I registered at www.authonomy.com, I submitted five chapters of my two Amish books – Christmas Traditions (ISBN 0982459513) and A Promise Is A Promise (ISBN 0982459505). I didn’t do this to work my way up to the authonomy desk, like the other writers, so Harper Collins might take a look at my work. I did it to get reviews to use on Ebay and Amazon. I wanted to give prospective buyers an idea about what others thought of my two books to help them make up their minds about buying my work.

I was thrilled with most of the reviews I got from that website and used them. Three writers tried to be constructive. One didn’t realize that I’d already self published and gave me tips on which publishers to try. She thought I should be picked up if I’d get the right publisher interested in my work. One wanted me to put the whole book on authonomy so she could see how it ended. I admitted to those two people that I was already self published. I’d like them purchase the book to see how it ended. Another one (from England which is where quite a few of the submitters on that website live) picked apart the first chapter of one book to make the story read the way he’d write it. He might have been right about the list of phrases he made of my writing style "errors" not working in a book written for England’s readers so I can’t fault him for his criticism. He was trying to help me. I don’t mind constructive criticism if it’s advice that I need to take to make my writing better. However, the other English reviews I received were great so my writing went over well with those who like American Amish stories. Since then I have sold one of my books to an UK customer.

I wonder what editors would think of my books. The revisions have be to their liking and in the publishing world, they are considered the experts, but one of my book buyers said about my work, "If it ain’t broke don’t fix it." I ask my buyers to send me a review of my books. I have a whole list of reviews from buyers who like my books the way they are and their email addresses to notify them when I have a new book coming out. I have to be doing something right in my story telling when I write a story that suits me. That means I self publish a book that I’d buy for myself. Now I’m sure that’s a book that wouldn’t suit mainstream urban readers, but my target is Midwesterners, country folks, Christians and people who want an entertaining, humorous suspense or romance that isn’t filled with violence or vampires. The idea of self publishing for me is to find out who and how many of those readers like me. So far I’m pleased.

On authonomy, authors rate each other. That means for every review I got I had to read someone’s work in return and review it. That takes hours. I wasn’t always reading material that I’d buy but responded with a critique that might help the author. To get the reviews I wanted for my books, it was worth the effort and time. I even got some advice on how to get up the ladder in the website so the publisher would notice my books.

I hear all the time now that self published work, if it’s selling, might be of interest to a publisher. Several years ago after I thought I had queried all the small publishers that would accept a query without an agent and was rejected, I got a list of agent email addresses and emailed around 200 for Christmas Traditions. Of the ones that bothered to answer, some emails come back with an automated reply. A few others said they liked my idea, but they had as many clients as they wanted to handle. Months down the road, I was still receiving emailed rejections. That’s why I was surprised when an agent searching the internet writers sites for new clients emailed me about her interest in my Amish books on Authonomy. That was the good news. Bad news is she used my Yahoo email address in October. I lost my home page about then and didn’t try to reinstall it again until February. When I found the email, I emailed the agent with my excuses and said I’d like to hear more but didn’t get a reply. When I looked up the agency, that agent wasn’t listed now. I take that to mean that fate may have intervened in my favor this time.

So take heart all writers out there wanting to get published. Publishers and agents may be coming to us. Submit a portion of your work to writers sites and blogs so the work is out there for publishers and agents to see. Wait patiently while you keep writing books and submitting. Out of the blue, you might find an email from a publisher or agent just like I did. Maybe you’ll be luckier than I was. My latest Amish book is going to be out in late March – The Rainbow’s End (ISBN 0982459521). So I’m CALLING ALL AGENTS to keep hunting. I and a lot of other talented authors are waiting for your email.

Last summer, I gave away copies of my latest book, "A Promise Is A Promise" ISBN 0982459505 at my high school reunion to 22 people. My husband and I had a delightful evening, reminiscing with my former classmates. One of the men at my table happened to be a former neighbor when we were growing up. We rode the same school bus. His family bought gas at my parents filling station.

A discussion was started with this man and his wife about my book writing. I admitted I wished all my books were better edited. I’ve had some editing help over the years and constructive criticism from a former teacher which I greatly appreciated, but I hated to always ask her to help me. I’m sure when she first offered she thought I might write one book and no more. The task of editing a book is a large one for anyone who didn’t expect to get paid for their efforts. Anyone who volunteered to edit one of my books could expect to find I liked to write books so the editing isn’t going stop with the next one. That is if the volunteer editor wants to read another book and another and another. That would be up to the volunteer.

Out of the blue after the reunion, I received an email offer from the classmate’s wife to edit my next book just for the privilege of reading it because she likes Amish stories. (Soon to be released "The Rainbow’s End – Nurse Hal Among The Amish – Book 2 . Now for me that is an offer I couldn’t refuse. A fresh eye. I feel as if a writer editing his/her own work is like a doctor treating himself or a lawyer defending himself. Not a good idea. When I read my work my brain reads the words the corrected way I know it should be and skips over the editing errors. Putting a story away and going back later does help find some mistakes. For me reading every other chapter works. That takes the story out of context so I’m reading the sentence structure more for errors rather than the story. Printing the story out to look at hard copy helps but ink is an expense. Takes most of a cartridge to print every manuscript. Even that doesn’t help me catch all the mistakes, because I am too close to the writing. However, I’m thinking giving someone else a hard copy to edit is worth the cost. I can afford a cartridge for that. I mailed a hard copy to my new editor right away.

I just got the manuscript back and the simple errors are so much easier to see once the correction is pointed out. I looked through the manuscript and can’t believe I made such mistakes. I emailed my new editor a thank you for the great job she did. She said she’d be glad to read the next story for me. I emailed back that the next book was a western sequel and not Amish. To my amazement, she emailed that she didn’t care. She likes my writing so much that she wants to read any book I write so send them to her. She says my writing is as good as Cindy Woodsmall and some of the Amish writers. What a compliment!

I find editing errors in almost every published book I read that experienced editors working for a publisher skipped over. I see the errors because I’m looking for them. Along with that, I watch sentence structure and the way a story is put together. All that is a learning experience for me. Does it take me longer to read a book than it would most people? It sure does, but watching how other authors write helps me become better as an author.

Editing by a professional is expensive. An expense that can leave a self published author in the red if the book doesn’t sell well. If I was well known and selling lots of books, I wouldn’t mind taking that expense off my income tax, but I have to get to that point first. I’m not there yet. I’ve heard of authors that spare no expense to self publish their work, go in debt and don’t sell enough books to pay the debt. I didn’t want that to happen to me.

That doesn’t change the fact I feel bad because of the mistakes in my book. I mention it to my book buyers once in awhile. Usually, they tell me that they are reading the book for the content. I write so well, they are absorbed in the story. They don’t notice editing mistakes while they are finding how what happens to the characters. One buyer brought one of my books to my attention. She thought I might like to know my editor missed four typos. I emailed her an apology with the explanation that I did my own editing. She was in awe that I could write a book that was that well done. I appreciated her comment. Still I stopped print on that book and reedited it to get rid of those four errors. Made me feel better.