Finished formatting Blood Curse 2nd edition this weekend. Next step is acquiring a block of ISBNs for the series and getting with a cover designer.
I have an idea for the cover, but I want a pro to let me know if it’s good and to actually create it.
At the 5 x 8 trim size I’ve selected, the print book will be 300 pages including the front and after matter sections.
I do still need to go over another copy to comply with Smashwords formatting. I’m still debating putting it on Google Books as well, which will involve creating yet another file type.
Audio books will have to wait for a while. They most definitely are NOT inexpensive to produce.
I’m not really frustrated with the process of formatting. I thrive on tedious things. I’m frustrated with not having large chunks of time to do it. Formatting is a time consuming process, if you want to do it right. My biggest clock eater with it at the moment is correcting paragraph indents manually.
Why manually? Because when I set the indent to 0.2 inches and applied it to the body of the text, over half the paragraphs remaining at 0.5 inches. So, I have to scroll slowly through the entire manuscript and hit backspace on all the incorrect indents.
Once that’s done, I’ll go through and center and replace all the scene separating asterisk place holders with the icon I’ll use. The first edition used little skull-and-crossbones. I haven’t decided whether to use that or find something else.
Some things I find aggravating are some of the little quirks of the editor function of Word. It keeps telling me I need to change witch to which. Also, even after I’ve indicated to ignore certain deliberate grammar mistakes or misspellings used in conversations, every time I go back through that passage for a different purpose, it marks them up again. Also, it incorrectly tries to get me to capitalize or put in lower case words starting sentences in quotations or immediately following the end quote marks. Plus, it doesn’t seem to like that I capitalize Brethren when referring to pirates or Sisters when referring to the Sisters of Power.
Stupid machine program.
Oh yeah, it also tries to get me to truncate certain phrases I use throughout the book down to one or two words. I use these particular phrases to fit the flavor of the book. I believe some refer to that as “voice.”
End rant.
(I’m actually enjoying the whole process. Actually is another word that Word tries to get me to stop using.)
First, I’d like to say thank you to my fellow authors on some of the writing groups we share on Facebook. They’ve been extremely helpful in my navigation of Ingram Spark’s submission guidelines. I highly recommend authors, whether new or veteran, to join such groups. They are especially beneficial to those of us whose schedules don’t mesh with in-person writing groups’ meeting schedules.
Meanwhile, I finally got started on the formatting of Blood Curse 2nd edition this weekend. I’m having to go back through and redo the italics because copying the text to the correct trim size undid all that work. Next up will be changing the font from Word’s default of Calibri. I’ve also installed Treasure Map Dead Hand as my font for titles and headers.
I know all this is tedious, but I’m enjoying the process. This will also help make producing the rest of the books in the series easier.
Meanwhile, I should finish typing up the final episode of The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe season 3 this week. I will start plotting season 4 once that’s done. I plan to start publishing season 2 early next year. Somewhere in between now and then, I need to do some promoting on that serial.
That’s it for now. Enjoy your short work week, and I hope you had a good Labor Day weekend.
Tamara Lowery's Scribblings 