Editing is tedious

My eyes are starting to go buggy. Been spending a LOT of time recently working on editing The Stars Came Back. The story is done. I’ve addressed some of the issues people had, like the attempted rape scene (ubu), the no-alarm airlock (Sendarius, I think, or was it Defens?), the “sudden pile of bodies” shortly thereafter (several people), the poker game (ubu), the multiple planets in one system L3/L4 issue (forget who, but thanks, it helped later, too), etc. Also think I got all the to/too, breath/breathe, clothes/cloths issues. Still a few things to work on, and now awaiting to hear back from a few of those brave souls that said they’d be happy to look it over and see what errors they can find in it. (If you asked to do so, and haven’t heard from me, drop my a line, because apparently my email to your email address you use when posting isn’t working for me). Not sure on the going live on Amazon date. Still awaiting to hear back from a couple of people on possible cover-art things (still entertaining suggestions on that front, actually), and want to go through it at least once and not find another error of some sort.

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12 thoughts on “Editing is tedious

    • Didn’t doubt for second that you were, but I also know you are busy. Still looking for the best way to put it on my own kindle, so I can test chapter things, formatting, and read it while on the road.

      • There’s an open source (free) software tool called “calibre” that handles lots of eReaders and lots of formats. I use it to convert various formats (rtf, html) to epub for my Nook. It can also convert to Mobi for Kindle.

        • Thanks – I’ll compare that to the AZW I just figured out how to do, and check out calibre. I have a Touch, not one of the 3G enabled Kindles, and I’m almost never around an available and secure WiFi, so their “whispernet” method sucks for me. I transfer everything to it via USB. As far as I’m concerned, clouds are for rain, not data storage.
          I just discovered (NOT well documented on the Amazon site) that mailing [email.address@free.kindle.com] with an attached PDF or word or RTF file will email you back a link to a downloadable AZW file. Kind of awkward, in that THEY do the conversion, so you have to have a connection, and let them see what you are converting, but the resulting file seems to work. Now I just have to work on the formatting, chapters, and all that exciting stuff.

          • Interesting. In my use of calibre, I just use the USB cable download. That’s easy and fast and works well. On the Nook anyway; I have no experience with Kindle.
            Calibre also makes a nice way to manage stuff downloaded from gutenberg.org and similar spots.

          • Looks like it should be good, so far.
            Formatting question for all y’all: Would you prefer just a very small number of chapters (like one per mission or intermission), or a much larger number, something along the 115 the posted version had? Any preferences or thoughts? (and saying “something in the middle” is a non-vote, unless you also include some sort of logical breakdown of what/why. It’s a little awkward in that some logical parts are pretty long, and others are quite short, so my current version has some 2-page chapters and some 30-page chapters.

  1. My only thought is.. when is book 2 starting? I’ve missed the daily chapters.

    • No solid plans for that, yet. Lots of possibilities, of course, but it all depends on how this one sells. Only sell 300 copies, reviews trash it? No writing another, harsh words from the spousal unit. Sells like Harry Potter? Sequels, prequels, parallel books in the universe, the “next generation” with Quinn having grown up, many pleasantly surprised words from the other half…

  2. Re chapters: small number. The online sections are only bits of what’s logically a chapter. By mission is a reasonable way to think of it. Or working from the start of the book, I’d start chapter 2 at the point of waking up in the desert, chapter 3 at the card game.

    • I like the idea of chapter titles, and when posting it online serially, it works well. But looking at how it formats in a Kindle when converted, I’m thinking small number, too. Maybe just going with numbers.

  3. Have you already posted the ending? (I quit reading it awhile back but I’d like to read the end, if it’s posted.)

    • not yet. Finishing the writing and editing and all that good stuff now, and still waiting to hear back from some people on cover-art. Should be done-ish pretty soon. Getting a lot closer.

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