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Thursday, August 6, 2015

The dreaded EDITING phase

As the writing phase for the third book in my Novum series, Rubicon, nears the end (two final chapters to finish) the "polishing" and editing phase will soon begin. For me this involves several steps:

1)  A last but through read through from beginning to end in a quiet room
2)  Several long walks listening to a British woman's voice read my story back to me (Ivona text-to-speech program is best for this.)  This completes my final polish.
3)  Next I send the manuscript to my brother, Dave, for his nit-picky and very detailed review
4)  The I send copies to a few select beta readers for overall impression.
5)  Finally, the manuscript is emailed to the well-paid-but-worth-it editors for final proof reading.

Following this, I start the publishing process. I format two editions, one for paperback and one for the various eBook formats, and then upload it all to the various distributors, along with my brother Dave's final version of the book jacket and cover. This part used to be very difficult to get right, but I have a lot of experience now so this doesn't take me long. After the final proofs of all versions are checked out, I give them the "okay" to publish, then I let all of you know it's available.

Check back soon for that!