A Self-Publishing Author’s Life

Hiya, Everything will be ready to go the printer within a week or two. Right now, I’m proofing galleys. How’s this for crazy: Write a book, create graphics, have graphics for almost every page, do the book cover, do the layout, all yourself? Yes, crazy, but I am loving doing this project anyway.

Still, I’m exhausted. Yesterday, proofing galleys, I found an error that took me two hours to fix. Argh! Anybody who thinks being an author—even if self-published—frees you from constant deadlines, crazy amounts of  pressure, and overwhelming, mind-numbing minutia, never went the whole nine yards of writing and publishing a book. As someone once said, “Publishing a book is like doing your taxes 100 times.” But I really think it’s worth it.

The error that took two hours to fix was 15 lines of text missing, and I could not add page count to fix the error. I had to finagle 9 pages, everything from graphics, to font size, to language. The upside: tightened language. I didn’t cut any ideas, but I was able to tighten language in about ten places that I’d tried to tighten earlier but could not think of a way to do so until yesterday. That’s exciting to me.

Being an OCD perfectionist makes me a good proofer.

I am delighted that, this time, I am managing to proof galleys without becoming insane. In the past, I usually did it in a frenzied state of terror, because I know that any mistakes I miss will be the subject of a vicious attack by some hater online. But this time I realize that if I get crazy while proofing, those haters have won. So I’m proofing in a fairly serene manner. Which probably, LOL, makes me more likely to spot any mistakes.

Presales start today, woohoo, reserve your copy, this is a limited edition.

Okay, back to proofing. Sigh. But it is worth it, I do believe, I do believe in Faeries! Oh, the following graphic is hopefully the final cover, finished it yesterday. If you spot a mistake, lemme know!