Three weeks ago, I told you my new book, Walkers on Water, was finished. I should have been more specific. The interior of the book was finished. During the past three weeks, I’ve formatted the interior, waited on the cover designer to finalize the covers, and, worst of all, I loaded everything onto different platforms for distribution to the public.
The hardest part of loading is getting the cover to work. I got so many error messages saying the file wasn’t the right kind, the right size, stuff was outside the margins, the wrong color palette had been used, and so on. I had to resave it in different file types and try to reload it. It was, as usual, a frustrating struggle, but at last I succeeded. A great weight lifted off my shoulders.
I have two people to proofread my book on standby, waiting to get the paperback so they can start their jobs for me. One is my 13-year-old grandson who always corrects my emails to him. He’s very eager to find all my mistakes. His package with my book will also have a red pen and sticky notes. It’s possible he’ll use them both up before he’s done. I have no doubt he’ll be really good at it. He’s an organized perfectionist.
The reason I’m so desperate to have this book “perfect” is because the last one I released with 19 typos. I nearly fainted when my best friend called and asked if I wanted her to point them all out to me. Of course I did! I want my books to be as professional and clean of errors as I can make them. It was a headache to reload all the platforms with a corrected manuscript.
This time, I’ve picked a release date of April 1st. That gives me a month to get comments and corrections from my proofreaders back, fix my manuscript, load the corrected manuscript before release. I also have time to do marketing, my least favorite part but totally necessary.
I need to wrap up a novelette that is the bridge between Walkers on the Run (on sale now) and Walkers on Water. It’s a free distribution to those who sign up for my monthly newsletters. The ones who already subscribe will also be able to get a copy. That requires more loading into platforms (ugh!), but it’s a lot easier than a whole book. Finally, I need to get my website updated with the book plus Goodreads, Amazon Author Central, and other places where my books are mentioned online.
All this takes places while Hubby is wanting to travel to every corner of Texas to get geocaches. He likes for him to go with him and I’d like to, but work comes first. I thought I was retired! Not really. Owning a small business really is a lot of work, but in my case, it’s a work of love. Maybe someday it will be a profitable business too.
And whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men… Colossians 3:23