Monthly Archives June 2010

And a final goes across

June 12, 2010 Promotion

Having had it sanity checked, spell checked, proofed and hopefully honed to near completion, the manuscript is now back with the editor. I am, not surprisingly, extremely nervous. To kill the nerves, I've been busy with yet more promotion, getting the blog linked to new sites and trying to make sure the RSS feeds are all connected. Hopefully most of this is now done - as you can see from the growing list of badges on the right hand side of the blog.As long as I can get this done correctly now, it should make getting word out about the book a lot easier when the time comes.

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International issues

June 10, 2010 Firestorm

The joys of conflicting laws: on what should be the final edit I find out something about the US that means a plot point is actually illegal over there, while in three other countries it is standard practice.Fortunately it is easily fixed to make it international, so it is not a showstopper just extremely irritating. At the current stage I will admit I am being pedantic, but I would like to reach the widest possible audience.However for any later books, I will probably try to stick to one country and a definite location - it's easier than balancing multiple laws!

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Promotion and proofing

June 8, 2010 Firestorm, Promotion

Today has been an interesting mix of editing, spell-checking and promotion work.I've finished a first look through on the manuscript, highlighted areas of concern, corrected the spelling errors that I found, and then switched to promotion work since I was having trouble focusing on the pages.Things have moved rather quickly on the marketing front. There is now a site up at vhfolland.co.uk. It's bare bones at the moment, but does have a forum for interaction. Two teasers and a book trailer are now ready at my end, although unreleased. I'm not sure what the publisher intends on this front, but I thought I'd make sure there was something available.Yesterday if you googled VH Folland you got a few links to Folland Gnat fighters with that registration. Today, I'm on the front page of search

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Is a Publication date approaching?

June 7, 2010 Firestorm

According to the editor, if we agree this version it will go out. Good news, but unfortunately this is where first novel nerves become a problem. I'm doing a final proof and re-read to make sure it is in the best possible shape before release.Catching two typos that have survived the rounds of re-reads is not unexpected. However, sentences and scenes that have been in since the first version suddenly no longer make sense to me. I find myself second-guessing sentences as simple as "Hello." and wondering 'who said that?' or 'why does that happen?' about the most trivial items, while redoing research that I did for the very first draft.The problem is that with non-fiction the problem of artistic licence does not arise as everything is factual and cited. With fiction you have to decide what

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And a second round of edits begins

June 7, 2010 Firestorm

I received the manuscript back this morning. The editor is apparently happy with it. The problem is that I am not.The book was originally written to be true to one particular country's laws and regulations. The themes could fit a number of others, so I widened the scope and made it less specific. Unfortunately making it fit an international audience causes a number of conflicts between varying laws and practices worldwide. While a layman can enjoy the story, some of these may take a reader who works in the field out of the book since there is no longer anything to tell them it isn't set in their country.The issue is whether to let it go out now as a good story, or whether to continue to work on refining the internationalisation to make it accurate to as many countries as possible.

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Marketing and publicity

June 6, 2010 Promotion

It seems early, since the book is still being edited, but promotion work is already underway. Once the book is released, promotion and publicity has a hard deadline as a new release becomes yesterday's news very quickly. Although the publisher does the marketing and promotion, any additional work the author can provide can only help; after all if no one knows about your book, how can they know if they want to buy it?My efforts are already taking effect. This blog is one of the more obvious, as is the online presence I am building. Book trailers and videos are under discussion, and the first mention of a cover was made recently which caused my ears to prick up.I know how the book reads, but I can't wait to see how it looks.

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Second edit in process

June 5, 2010 Firestorm

The manuscript has returned to the editor after the first round of edits were completed.One of the interesting things about writing adventure is the detail needed - readers who will accept unlikely or illegal actions by characters within the plot will get taken out of the story if a door opens the wrong way.

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