As May draws to a slow end, I find myself facing a nearly completed manuscript. It should be neat, well formed and proof read. It should be without a single mistake, spelling or otherwise. Let’s face it, it is not. There are probably a horde of errors, an army of little niggling mistakes that readers will pick up on. That’s the problem with self editing ( and getting people to read through your manuscript for you), you just don’t see it all.
A good hint I heard at a writing course at Harpercollins is reading your manuscript backwards. Boring? Yes. But that’s the way it is. I’m now trying editing as I go, just for a change. I’m even mapping out my manuscript more rigidly. All in all, I’m enjoying being back at the laptop, cup of tea next to me, girlfriend in the other room, creating another world where a master killer is at odds with the world.
As I’ve said, Spider Mouth is almost ready to be sent off into the Kindle world, but I must admit to be a little apprehensive. I wrote it a while ago, and it’s needed a lot of work. Hopefully people will like it. Welcome To Killville will follow, which I hope will make people see that detective crime fiction isn’t my only string. Yes, it’s crime, but it’s something more, something darker.
I’ve just been reading about the next step for ebooks: musical books, animated books (I think), which is something I’ve dreamt about in the past. The book is dead, long live the book!
There’s been a lot of talk lately about people spamming and going crazy with self promotion. It’s a tough one. How much is too much? Is there such a thing as bad publicity? We haven’t the tools or the money to advertise, to get on tv and plug our books. But, remember what Shakespeare said through King Henry The Fifth: when playing for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the sooniest winner.
Bye.