Someone told me, “Being an Indie author gives one a lot of freedom. I can write what I like and publish it when I believe it’s ready to be read.”
There is a lot of truth in this statement, but my main problem is that I, personally, often get too anxious to publish and sometimes release my baby (work in progress) prior to its being actually ready. Needless to say, this happened with my first science fiction book, “The Time of the Cat”. I’ve been playing catch up on editing (more on that in a second) and am now on the 4th edition.
Regarding editing: There are a lot of great, free-lance editors available, but they all have one thing in common. They want to be paid for their work! Who knew! Seriously, I’m of the opinion that they certainly earn their money the hard way. Unfortunately for me, as a starting author, I’m still in the red. I made the decision to provide professional quality covers and art work isn’t free. As much as I’d like an editor, I’m really not ready to spend the money until I’ve become more established. This means that you, Dear Reader, will sometimes be faced with mistakes. Ugh!
My writing process is sporadic. I sit down and begin writing and sometimes I only write a few hundred words; other times the story flows and I do five or six thousand. If I could only keep up that rate, I’d do a novel a month, but all that sitting is hard on the body. Anyway, when I really get going, I’m more concentrated on getting the story line out than on being precise about spelling or grammar. Before I started self-publishing, I thought that I was a good writer. Now I’m not so sure. BUT, I’m getting better.
Using spell check is a no brainer in terms of finding misspelled words, but the secondary question that spell check doesn’t address is: Are they the right words? They’re – There – Their – You’re – Your, etc. I have one review that mentions that my story consistently confuses loose with lose. That’s a valid and appreciated criticism. It’s being fixed in edition 4. It was something that I didn’t notice that probably slipped in via spell-check or search and replace.
The point is, I really want to deliver the best reading experience possible to my readers. I’ve read (as I’m sure you have also) lots of ebooks that are filled with mistakes. Sometimes these mistakes can be so disruptive that the story suffers. I’d like to avoid that, so your comments pointing out mistakes are very welcome.
My offer to you is if you find a serious mistake or a section of writing that doesn’t flow, let me know. If you want, I’ll give you credit at the end of the book or maybe name a minor character after you.
Namaste!
