One of the steps towards publishing Beast Master is converting the book into ePub format.  I had been planning on using a publishing platform like smashwords or amazon to convert my word document into an ePub. I had made one attempt to convert a word doc into an ePub just to see what it was like using Calibre. While it did the job, the chapter headings and my scene breaks did not come out the way I wanted them to look. Which led me to worry about using an on-line conversion utility where I would have no control over how my document is interpreted. So I did a search on the internet looking for help and found a book, Zen of eBook Formatting: A Step-by-step Guide To Format eBooks for Kindle and EPUB by Guido Henkel. There is lots of good stuff in the book which I have utilised. Now, to see what his suggestions look like in an actual ePub!

I had a meeting with my daughter several weeks ago regarding steps to take for publishing my book, Beast Master. We set a publication date and decided on marketing strategies. Of course all the steps that had to be done to get there falls on my shoulders. I set up tasks to do and then promptly went on holidays to ski. The skiing was great, the task completion not so much. Hopefully I’ll catch. up.

I have started the edit for In the Blood of the King. At the same time I am reading A story is a Promise by Bill Johnson.

What do the two have in common? The writing process. A Story is a Promise postulates that the writer has to promise the reader a story from the very first sentence. When I think about all the great stories I have read, that is so very true. One of my favourites, Covenants by Lorna Freeman starts “We were lost.” And in that one sentence, the whole book, the whole world the book is in, is summed up. The characters were lost physically, the main character, Rabbit, is lost to himself and the country he lives in is rapidly loosing its identity as it is transformed into something different. The we in the opening sentence is so freighted with meaning that in retrospect I am surprised the word remained printed on the page and hadn’t fallen out of the book!

Oh, to write an opening line like that. What I would give, but I am not Lorna Freeman and who knows how long it took her to get to that simple 3 word sentence. So instead, I have to edit and cut and edit and cut until I am crazy, not knowing if the cutting is good or bad. Ha, there goes the prologue, snip, snip, there goes the beginning of chapter 1. Snip, snip, snip.

March was busy. I had sent my manuscript Beast Master to a copy editor and I got it back in March. I stared at the link for a few days, fearful of what I would find. It had been such a gruelling exercise when I sent it to the editor that I was worried about what she would say. Never having had a copy edit done, I was unsure what would happen. Finally I girded my loins and opened it. On first glance, it looked like a lot of edits. Sigh, what do you expect? Grammar and spelling were never my strong suit. To complicate matters, I had so many unique words, names, places, that the spell check was useless and the grammar check and I didn’t always agree.

I tentatively stared to review the comments, hmmm, a comma is missing. Oh, another comma. Oh a third. It seems to me that the vast majority of my problem was commas. Ha, that was a relief. There were a few grammatical errors, not many. There were a few sentences which were confusing and once I had misnamed a character. I was ecstatic over that one. Have you ever read a book, a printed, supposedly copy edited book and found that an important characters name had changed part way through? You go back and forth to check and sure enough some one didn’t catch that problem. I am so glad that that one mistake was picked up.

The comments were thoughtful and, I think, have improved the readability of the book.

Now, if I can just finish the sequel I can finally publish Beast Master.

It’s been a while since I posted anything. Why? you ask. Because I’ve been busy on a number of fronts. I was skiing at Monte Sainte Anne at the beginning of March. We in Ontario have had a definite snow drought. My husband and I like to snowboard in Ontario and there was so little snow that many places didn’t open until after Christmas, and then they closed early. Hard on those places. Christmas and March break are where most of those places make their money. Opening late cut into their Christmas season. Then there was next to no snow in January so if their is no snow, people don’t think about skiing or boarding so they don’t go, even though there is man made snow. There was snow in February, but not enough and too late. Then there is a thaw and then March break and well, most of those resorts will be carefully reviewing their finances, hoping to find some savings to allow them to open next year.

But I digress and that is Ontario. Monte Sainte Anne is in Quebec. They had enough snow after Christmas for some decent skiing but then in February, all the snow that was meant for Ontario fell on this one mountain. There was so much snow that they were able to stay open into April. All the runs and the glades were open in April on the south side which is amazing and it all was because of the February snow falls. We went at the beginning of March and it was great skiing, glades, moghuls and groomed runs to soar like a bird on.

So that was February, March is up next.

There are so many steps to publishing a manuscript. Write the thing. Review the thing. Get alpha readers to review the thing. Send it to an editor. Get a book cover done. Tackle the edits. Review it AGAIN! Send it to a copy editor. Tackle those changes. Review it as an ePub. Decide where it will be available. Market the thing. And I am sure I’ve left out some steps.

So which step am I at? I’ve sent my manuscript, Beast Master, off to a copy editor. Hurrah!

What steps have I covered? I’ve had alpha readers read it.  I’ve reviewed it.  I’ve had it edited. I have reviewed the edits. I have a cover. I have a blog and a web site (that’s the marketing thing) so I’m down to the last few steps.

I am very, very curious to see what the copy editor has to say. I hope that it will take less time to tackle her changes/suggestions than for the editor. That was a very difficult exercise, but worth it.

I still want to get the first draft of  book 2, In the Blood of the King, finished before I actually do the publishing. I’m about 1/3rd of the way through it. So I need to buckle down and get it finished so I can go through all those steps again with it. Oh joy!