I'm doing it my way (still)

This post is really just for my record of self-publishing posterity. (Something which I have decided to make public. Warts an’ all.) You have been warned.

I’ve had Rope Enough available at Amazon and Smashwords for a month now and Making A Killing available at both since before Christmas. In that time I’ve had some helpful feedback. What particularly interested (concerned) me were the number of mentions of typographical errors, missing/repeated words and incorrect use of names. Every time I read something to that effect it was like driving a six-inch nail into my bare foot.

So, because it’s important to me to make the books as perfect as I can (as it should be for anyone who wants to be taken seriously) I have naturally amended them to take into account the necessary corrections that have been high-lighted. I also read them both again (again! unbelievable but true) and found a few other things that I had obviously missed on my previous proof-reads. These were mostly punctuation marks, but there was also another wrong name.

I have now resubmitted the updated versions of both titles to Amazon and Smashwords.

I do not intend to read either of these books again for at least a year.

I am half-way through my final, final proof-read of Joint Enterprise the third (and final?) Romney and Marsh File. It is my hope and intention that by the time the other two have been accepted into circulation by Amazon and Smashwords Premium Catalogue, I will have Joint Enterprise ready for submission.

Regrets? I have a few. But only one I care to mention. I regret that the people who have downloaded the two books already will probably end up harbouring some negativity for my output because of the errors. Time cannot be reversed, so I can only learn from it. I still don’t think that I particularly rushed getting either book out there. I was as certain as I could be that they were as good and error free as I could make them – at the time. This, I suppose is why there are  professional editors and professional proof-readers. It’s just one of the advantages that industry supported published authors have over penny-less self-published authors. I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I’m really not. I’m cross about it. I might be giving them away but I can’t get away from the idea that, freebies or not, the people who download them are customers. Now, they might be customers who don’t come back. Bugger!