On my calendar this weekend I have formatting the e-book and paperback for Everything is Broken. I also have a Drive-by Truckers concert to attend in Atlanta. Seeing DBT live (and Bob Dylan) is like a religion for me. So, I won’t be missing that. I also have the very important task of spending time with the family. I’ve always struggled to minimize the effect of my writing pursuits on my wife and son. I have always hoped that they would not need to sacrifice for my passion. I fear that lately I have failed. Not miserably, mind you. But there is no way around the fact I am stealing time away from them in the evenings doing someIndie-writerly things.
Further on fears… I am getting into unknowns. The actual publishing side of things. I tell myself that the uncertainty I feel is just the discomfort of doing things I have never really done before. The truth is much darker.
I am struggling with Heinlein’s Rules #3 and #4.
3. You must not rewrite (unless to editorial order)
I don’t have an editor to order me to do anything. I’ve made typo fixes found by my first reader (my wife) and a copy-editor. That’s it, right? Damn, while I scanned the book formatting for e-book I noticed a typo they both missed! And this is the dark, downward spiral of Rule #3. I’m fighting the good fight, but it is very hard to not succumb to the temptations of rewriting (to death).
4. You must put it out to market.
The butterflies here are just about the same as getting up in front of a crowd and speaking. I’m an introvert, and that terrifies me. However, I am grasping onto what I’ve learned in my professional life, where I have learned to dive into the deep-end. When an opportunity arises, I volunteer, get the public speaking over with, and breathe a sigh of relief. I’ve gotten good at presenting to fairly large audiences. I will remember that and try to sprint to hitting the publish button. Then forget it and don’t read reviews if any of them ever come in. Ha ha. The key to that sprint, however, is making it to the other side of Rule #3.
Good news? I slept in until 7 a.m. today, but still got my morning words in. Tomorrow will me more difficult as I’ll be up till God knows when in the House of Rock. And somewhere in there, I need to finish formatting books. The e-book is pretty much there, I need to draft a copyright page and figure out how to get the free ISBNs input on my book from the retailers that require ISBN (and I have no clue about that, God help me if these D2D and others don’t have weekend customer support).
Have a great, prolific weekend.
Tony D. Writes Pulp Fiction 
Tony you should be on Twitter or Facebook (as a writer, entertainer). How else will I know if you have a new blog post?
I, like you, never hired a professional editor. Paying 400-1200 dollars for someone to tell me they hate my protagonist, just seemed like a waste of money.
For my first book, I had the publisher proofread it. They edited for grammar but didn’t object to any of the content. (Because obviously they didn’t care)
Second and third books, I edited myself. Yes, I missed a lot of errors but they were “free books” so I didn’t sweat them.
For my new novel series, I hired proofreaders for about half (or less) of the editor’s quote, one writer, one college-degreed Grammar Nazi. But even the grammar nazi missed some things, which readers pointed out to me. The writer was actually more helpful, since she questioned some of the logistics of plot which I hadn’t thought all the way through.
So the only option is to go back and reread the books and edit mistakes based on (a) me re-reading or (b) me hiring another proofreader.
That’s pretty much the only sensible thing to do.
The thing is, I don’t have millions of fans right now to harass me on social media saying my books are packed full of errors. Just fix the major errors in books now, while you’re just starting out.
Also Grammarly has really helped me out, and caught stuff the proofreader didn’t even catch.
-LM
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LM, I’m pretty sure if you “follow” this blog, you get notifications. Having said that, I have created a Facebook Group, I just haven’t announced it to the world yet. I need to get on that… and linking it to this page, and all that stuff. The facebook group is: https://www.facebook.com/groups/anthonydecastropulp/
Tony
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I am intrigued to read your book, btw, since you seem like a smart dude. I’m beta-reading one of my friends’ unpublished books now, and just finished reading another friend’s Amazon book last month. I think this whole “trade manuscripts” thing is a Linux-style “open source” approach to writing that is more cost-efficient than sucking up to editors, I really do.
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I somehow missed this comment. I’d be happy to discuss a manuscript swap, as long as we can get into specifics of what we are looking for. If you use the Contact form here on the blog, I’ll be happy to share.
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