It’s June tomorrow… and at some point – I’ll let you know when, ROSA will be published on Kindle. So I am now in the last stages of editing, because as a self-publisher I have to do all that myself… and it’s tricky. I have to admit there were some typos and errors in ‘Farholm’ but I think Kindle sometimes mangles stuff as well… no excuse for me to make a mistake! I also want to make sure my story reads well – I don’t want my muddles to get between the story of Tyche Kane’s hunt for the stalker and my readers.
My husband, the rock drummer is reading it as there are some scenes where a band plays, I want to make sure they are right! There are some intimate scenes – I want to make sure they are not too toe curlingly embarrassing because they are crucial to the story line. The characters sometimes use bad language – real people do swear and it would be unrealistic for a disaster to happen and someone says “Oh goodness me, oh bother!” However, I don’t want it to be gratuitous, every swear word has to be there for a purpose, either as part of a character, or to emphasise something which has happened – or as adults joking with each other.
So.. I have downloaded ROSA as a PDF onto my Kindle and I am doing the last read through, seeing it as my readers will on that little grey page. I am going to read it out loud again (“Oh no!” my family groans) and I am going to do my absolute best to make it the absolute best I can!
Here goes…
Lois Elsden 
Writing is hard work. Rewriting and proofing is even harder for the writer. I am so proud of you, Lois.
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So very well done Lois and I wish you the very best of luck with it. Such an enormous task – never mind writing the thing! I’m just investigating the self-publishing route but it does seem an enormous mountain to climb – in fact from down here I can’t even see the top. So double congratulations on your achievement! I’ve bought Farholm and am looking forward to getting a moment to read it! x
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Ps – forgot to say I think the cover’s great!
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Good luck with the final editing!
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Thank you, Louise!
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Book cover great. I think I am a pretty good proof reader but we all fail in little ways proof reading our own stuff. I think our brain sees what it wants to see or what it should be instead of the error. If something’s going out I almost always let someone else proof read. In addition to looking for errors often a better choice of word here and there may be suggested by the other person.
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So true, Carl! I’ve also found that Kindle sometimes jumbles letters, breaks words or squishes them together… I hope my readers for give me!
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Lois, I know what you are going through with the errors. I’m a self-publisher too. The best advice I can give is to get it edited. My first self-published project (in 2007) ended up with errors that my son started telling me about along with other readers. I was embarrassed. You may know someone who has an extraordinary gift with grammar and spelling who doesn’t edit for a living but probably could if they wanted to and ask them to do it and offer to pay them. I wish you all the best,
Marvin
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