UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
Agony Aunt
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Today I mostly wrote ... the word count thread.
Slogging through on the edit. I recently discovered the read aloud feature in Word so am going through it chapter by chapter. Once that's done, I'll assemble it into one file to read through on the Kindle Keyboard.... hope that will be it after that!
Reading out loud catches the most interesting mistakes - have fun.
Ditto re slogging though edit Pam. I am going through noting the tracers I’ve laid for later plot developments and then forgotten about! Also finally did a blog post this week! :-)
Good job, MT and Pam!My editing is done, and now I'm digging into the formatting part again after seven years. Many things will be different (and a new computer will join my suite of aids very soon) as Createspace has disappeared, and I have the whole Amazon set to peruse and learn.
Being slow has its disadvantages.
Forsaking everything else, I've spent the last few days creating bits and pieces for the NETHERWORLD launch:A friend is formatting and doing the cover for me - because my brain was so fogged progress was stalled. Once he started, it's become a dance between my preconceptions and his skills (which are massive), but he can't work unless I give him the content.
So, little by little, all the pieces you need - text and images - have been coming together. And being sent to him.
He's making my 'vision' of the cover, an extremely rough sketch, real, with a little help from me (yesterday I finished the male figure on the cover and selected the best version of the sky).
He's formatting the paperback interior - with the fonts I had to relearn completely and locate. My first attempt to get him the text in a form he could use was designed for agents (Courier 12 and UNDERLINE for italics), and was making him have to work too hard - so I relearned the Compile function in Scrivener, and sent him something in the right font, WITH italics - he says it's going much faster.
My brain was incapable of taking this step until he started working on it.
His sample covers so far are exactly what I said I wanted - allowing me to refine what I meant as we go along. When I apologized, he said to chill - he does this for his wife's books, and she's just like me. I stand somewhat embarrassed, but he's a joy to work with.
This week will be critical, and it's almost over!
I was hoping to apply for the UK Kindle Storyteller award (deadline Aug. 22, I think), but we may not make it - my fault entirely. But we'll still get this launched.
Great going Alicia. It's always wonderful when you find someone who just 'gets' what you want. My cover designer is similar.Hope you manage to get it done in time but if you don't it's still a fantastic achievement and I hope you'll be cracking open the bubbly and giving yourself a pat on the back!
I've not done much. The mum mortgage or not mortgage, depending on what we do, is dragging on, and on, and on. It's awful because it's sucking everything out of me like some malevolent dementor. I haven't written anything meaningful for ages and that's beginning to really bring me down. That said, I have managed to rearrange some scenes this week and I have some scenes in my head that I need to write which should be good. Once my brother's been to see Mum in two weeks, I should know where I am with the mortgage.
Life is just hard right now. Everything seems to mushroom into some massive pile of admin shite so that even the simplest of jobs ends up being like trying to pull a 747 up a hill with my teeth.
Sorry things are tough with your mum, Mary. That is such a huge responsibility for you and your brother to manage, and so fraught with potential pot holes on the path.And then the financial aspects sound overwhelming. Maybe when you get the mortgage settled it will be better for a while.
I have to deal with some stomach-knotting paperwork - I was hoping to get the launch over with first, but that's not moving very fast, and surgery looms, and I don't want to leave a mess - the stress helps nothing.
And, like you, I'm miserable when I'm not writing.
Alicia wrote: "Sorry things are tough with your mum, Mary. That is such a huge responsibility for you and your brother to manage, and so fraught with potential pot holes on the path.And then the financial aspec..."
Thanks and back at you. This stuff if always tough but especially when you have the whole CFS thing to contend with really hope the launch goes well..
On a lighter note, I did some writing today and a new character has popped up who is almost as fully formed as The Pan of Hamgee was when he first arrived. So that's grand. 🤣🤣 I'm just interested to see where it will go now. Hopefully I'll get to sneak a bit in tomorrow too. Fingers crossed.
Went bobbing in the pool yesterday - surprisingly exhausting, even though it is a bit of lovely time which makes me taking a shower after somewhat less painful.Today I'm paying for both AND doing a thorough proof of NETHERWORLD's 587 pages. Whew!
I think it's still better I have help - but it is a lot of work, and a few new kinds of possible problems.
Part was my bad in how I produced a .doc from Scrivener. Fortunately, he told me what he was having to do by hand, I re-did the whole file, and only have to check the FIRST three chapters with the finest-toothed comb.
Proofing take a lot out of you.
Definitely does Alicia. It's the levels of concentration required. They're huge. 🧡 It's all progress though.
It is irritating to see that my original is fine, but after going through the wrong process, a bunch of things got change one-way - and there is no systematic way to bring it back.After a certain 'point of no return,' it is easier to keep going forward than to go back and start from scratch. The catch is you never know WHEN that point has arrived.
Alicia wrote: "It is irritating to see that my original is fine, but after going through the wrong process, a bunch of things got change one-way - and there is no systematic way to bring it back.After a certain..."
Ugh yes. Or like me with the current WIP, you rip it up and start again too early and then realise the old version was fine.
M.T. wrote: "On a lighter note, I did some writing today and a new character has popped up who is almost as fully formed as The Pan of Hamgee was when he first arrived. So that's grand. 🤣🤣 I'm just interested t..."Oh look forward to that one :-)
M.T. wrote: "...Or like me with the current WIP, you rip it up and start again too early..."Hazard of pantsing? Not knocking it - I assume roughly half of writers are pantsers - but ripping it up sounds drastic.
Call it 'using material judiciously' to sound better. :)
Alicia, you'd be amazed how much I recycle. 🤣🤣
I have the opposite problem: every time I think through a plot point, I write the scene bit. When it's time to pick just ONE version, it is hard!Some are valuable if I ever write for a soap opera.
If you keep them all, you might have a whole soap opera already! Did some more words today, only about 200 which feels like nothing, but I've worked out how the music halls in K'Barth work and who Burton Coggles is and what they do - they because they are a drag act but though they have female and male alter egos, nobody quite knows which of those is the biological original. :-)
I have reached the fuck the admin I'm going to write stage at the moment so I should get to visit K'Barth today as well. I have a scene to write with The Pan jumping through a lavatory window and inadvertently knocking someone out. This is going to be fun.
I posted on my author thread here, which I am also Following, and it didn't appear in my feed as it has in the past.Did anyone see it?
Do I only get notified if someone sees it and responds? I'm confused.
I think Goodreads gets quite glitchy from time-to-time Alicia. I haven't seen it, I don't think, but I may have missed it. I've been under the social media radar this week as I've kicked pretty much everything into touch in favour of doing some writing.
You've had a rather full plate for a long time now - irrelevant things will mostly not stick under those conditions, except for the odd factoid you didn't really need.Hope it gets better, more resolved, easier somehow.
Alicia wrote: "You've had a rather full plate for a long time now - irrelevant things will mostly not stick under those conditions, except for the odd factoid you didn't really need.Hope it gets better, more re..."
Me too! :-) There's light ahead but it's a long way off. I am exhausted today but always am on Thursdays because Wednesday's drive is always tough.
Spent the week writing up a storm and yesterday and today writing my blog.
M.T. wrote: "Spent the week writing up a storm and yesterday and today writing my blog."well done M T
Been slowly progressing my edit but broke off to deal with crit group where I'm circulating another book and need to get the next segment edited sufficiently for sending.
Pam wrote: "M.T. wrote: "Spent the week writing up a storm and yesterday and today writing my blog."well done M T
Been slowly progressing my edit but broke off to deal with crit group where I'm circulating ..."
It's all writing though, isn't it. :-) Nice going.
I haven't fallen off the planet - I've just had my head down trying to get to The End. I made it. Hello again, to you all. Good to see you're all still beavering away.
Thank you.Love this line, Alicia, "Some are valuable if I ever write for a soap opera."
Purple prose, ya know - early drafts tend to be more soapy.
Yay! Well done! Nothing much this week but I have nearly finished a blog post and did a good long newsletter as well so it's not that I haven't been writing just ... not the book. Also Mum is taking a bit of time as I need to get her sorted a little. She is home now but it's all go with that, too.
Located everything I needed to fix the right indent problem on the current ebook - and patiently walked myself through everything that had changed since 2015 when I did it before.I have ebook interior and cover, print interior and cover, and will try to upload everything tonight. I haven't had time for myself and my writing for ages, with all the medical appointments, so I indulged.
I have found that, the more stressed I am, the more I need a excruciatingly detailed list of the steps, and to walk through them mentally several times before doing things - I cannot think on the fly. But I don't have to!
It's so good to see how you are all getting on. Today, in my diary are masses of things to do re releasing 'the book'. However, as many will know, today is the Queen's funeral. Need I say more? Tomorrow I go to London to meet up with a writing friend, and so it goes on...
There was ONE problem on the print interior - the formatter fixed it this morning - it uploaded.Now I wait.
The ebook was approved in about an hour last night. Waiting for the print version - up to 72 hours, they said.
Anna wrote: "It's so good to see how you are all getting on. Today, in my diary are masses of things to do re releasing 'the book'. However, as many will know, today is the Queen's funeral. Need I say more? T..."
Books sometimes have to wait - mine waited months. Now I'm finally waiting for THEM. :)
My formatting was perfect - except for an occasional section where the paras were separated by more space than the others! Fixed now but I'll take the proof on the train to read it through and see if I've missed something. So I'm close behind you, Alicia - what a triumph for you!
Thanks - but it was a bit more 'comedy of errors' than triumph in some places, my first time working with someone else.He thinks he may add formatting and covers for others to his services - patient man!
Woot! Congratulations both of you. I have achieved very little writing wise this week although I did do a blog post and a hoooge newsletter.
It's really weird, waiting for the first review for NETHERWORLD, having informed many of those who said they couldn't wait for it (nice people) that it was available to borrow from KU or buy.I know several are waiting for Oct. 19, when a Kindle Countdown will make it temporarily less expensive - and that's fine (I want readers, not revenue to get this one moving) - but, because Amazon makes you wait 30 days after a price change (in this case, after setting the initial price), I have seen a few sales, but no reviews yet.
And I'm still waiting for my own paperback copies - to see if everything is right.
What an odd launch. I wanted it done before my surgery, in case... Wasn't REALLY worried, but...
It feels ghostly and surreal, like its cover was meant to be.
Thanks M.T.Alicia, you and probably 90%+ of those who launch their books into this big, wide world will be saying something similar to what you are.
I know what you mean about having to wait so long before we can reduce our books if we are KDP members.
Launching a book has been compared to delivering a child.I've had three children - no fun, any of it.
But this launch was complicated by surgery, pain, and very slow recovery - which never helps anything.
I think I'm seeing the edge of the forest now, and that the light at the end of the tunnel is not an approaching train, but I was incapable of believing that until VERY recently. Pain obliterates your ability to think.
I like the idea of being in KDP, and just have to give it permission to be what it is. And slow.
I hear you. I find launches hard too. I wrote some words yesterday for the first time in ages and I think I now know how two strands are part one and part two of a story. I may have to write a lot of it again, but that's going to be OK. Also sold a book to a UK TV star who did the first 24 Terry Pratchett Discworld books in audio. That was a bit of a thing. :-) I was a bit star struck but I think I managed to squeak by OK. Now it's a question of whether I write the new, more sorted in my head book for Nano or go for the Dementia book which I think I'm going to call, 'The Mice Are Rising' after something my Mum said to me in the middle of the night.
Something to honour your mom sounds lovely.I can't wait to getting back to the writing - the head hasn't been clear enough since the surgery, but it's coming if I just take care.
Alicia wrote: "Something to honour your mom sounds lovely.I can't wait to getting back to the writing - the head hasn't been clear enough since the surgery, but it's coming if I just take care."
Thanks. And great news. I hope the recovery continues to go well even if it is going slowly! Although it seems fast to me, for someone contending with CFS on top it looks like you're doing extremely well from here, although I can imagine it may not feel like that.
M.T. wrote: "...I can imagine it may not feel like that..."
I wonder what I could do if I was still my former physicist self (not very often - I'd be retired anyway by now, but with a more interesting resume).
As you know from dealing with what you've had to these past years, you do what you have to do - and I know you have your own health problems.
It's amazing what we can do when we have no choice, but it is also sobering what we CAN'T.
Alicia wrote: "M.T. wrote: "...I can imagine it may not feel like that..."
I wonder what I could do if I was still my former physicist self (not very often - I'd be retired anyway by now, but with a more intere..."
Yes, I think you've nailed it there. A great deal of pragmatism required. You have to accept what you can't do but it's not always easy is it? And yes, sometimes I think not being able to do a lot of stuff forces you to do the few tiny things that you can. Not that that is exactly a bonus.
Pragmatist is me.And in a new, interesting-to-me twist, I ordered two paperback copies of NETHERWORLD (didn't like the proof copy that I'd gotten with PURGATORY - it had 'Proof' on a banner across the front!) on Sep. 20, right before heading for Stanford, and Amazon listed it for delivery Oct. 2 - 6. I said to myself, "Fine - it'll be here when I'm back."
Now it says it's possibly still coming, but they've lost track of it, and maybe it wasn't even picked up from the POD until Oct. 2, but if I want to, I can cancel and get a refund!
I have no idea what to do - I could cancel and make another order, or not.
So I'm just going to wait, knowing the copies are in the ether (or in a truck (lorry) somewhere being tracked (maybe)).
"Never do major things to yourself at the same time you launch a book" is my new motto.
It irks me that my aunt, who bought the third paperback copy, received it a while back - and sent me a picture (!) saying it was fine.
But clearly I've hit some minor chaos quirk in the universe, so I'll have to just wait and see.
They're probably fine. And mine never sell like hotcakes at the beginning, so I'll just have to fix anything that's wrong when I see them. (Shaking head.)
I hope they arrive soon Alicia. With any luck they'll be fine like the others. :-)
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