As I write this post, I feel like I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off. On Sunday night, I was discussing the possibilities of converting my book into a PDF file. (It’s currently a Microsoft Word file) Then, from that discussion, my brain went haywire thinking about the various possibilities that could come from having my novel in PDF form. Mainly, the fact that I could begin selling it.
Yesterday, my thought process turned into: could I get this on a Kindle? Turns out…it’s not as difficult to do as I thought. I’ve been reading up on the issue, and I downloaded the guide to uploading a Kindle file.
Basically, I have tons of information to sift through, but I’m pretty positive that I’m going to go the route of e-publishing. That being said, I still have several items that I need to take action on. Such as:
- re-editing my book…I need to focus on the story aspect this run through
- formatting my manuscript…this is going to take several days to do
- finding someone to design a cover…and making buttons and badges to post on my blog and for other people to use
I would appreciate any advice that you may have. I will listen to it openly.
In the meantime, the biggest help I could get is having you ‘like’ my Facebook page. The link is on the right side of the page. Share with your friends!
Hey Tessa,
Have you had it professionally edited? That would be a plus if not. A good friend of mine from Kentucky, didn’t and realizes what a mistake that was…looking back, that is.
I haven’t done it yet. Going to have to make sure I can afford it first!
Tessa, I think Jennifer’s question is a good one. For what it’s worth, here is my experience … I finished my manuscript in 2010. Since then, I have looked at it so very many times, edited it oh … maybe four times … and each time, I find something, somewhere that could have been said better, and up until maybe two edits ago, actual grammatical errors. Some of those things you are blinded to until you’ve laid it down for a while. I, too, was considering ‘going my own way’ until recently. I’m afraid for you to decide to do that too quickly! I know that anxious feeling only too well … you’ve finished it, and now you want it to ‘work’ for you. A good editor before you take that step would be a great idea. I kind of wish I’d done that long ago …
I’m currently going through it looking for ways to make it into deep POV. I was sent an article by Tanya that has helped immensely with fixing those types of errors. One suggestion that article had is to a search in your document for “thought” or “felt” (and all related words) and look at each sentence that you find those in. It has really helped! Once I complete the whole process, I will begin looking into the editing because I don’t want my manuscript to look poorly done after I’ve spent so much time on it!
Hmmm … maybe I better go look for ‘thoughts’ and ‘felt’ too! =)
Tanya is a most excellent editor! She helped me with my book so much.
And I think I probably read, re-read, edited, edited again and edited again my first book over 50 times. And still when it was officially published… we still found errors after the fact. Just goes to prove, ten people can look at your book and still miss something. 
Tessa, for after you hire an editor, I found this interesting myself … http://whotv.com/2012/07/05/turning-the-page-clive-mom-chases-a-dream/
How inspiring!