Book 1 rough draft complete.

[Kang]

Grats! I wish I had seen this thread sooner. I work in books. If you want any help with formatting, prepping files, general advice, etc. I'm happy to share my knowledge.

[Starbuck_Jones]

Thank you for the help Kang. I will hit you up if get stuck with anything or if you have any general advice let me know.

Last night I spent some time with my photographer friend and we worked on the front cover some more as well as the back cover. There is an apostrophe missing that we need to add on the back cover text, but let me know your opinions on what I have so far.

[Kang]

If you haven't already, I strongly suggest hiring a professional copy editor/proofreader. They make a world of difference. Many self-published authors skip this step, but it is well worth the money. If you were working through a publishing company, they would hire one for you.

A good copy editor will tighten up the writing making it clean and concise. They will look for consistency in the story and point out areas that need to be clarified. They will point out plot holes or gaps in the story. Good authors have good editors, and they will be the first to tell you that.

There are many copy editing services available. There are also a ton of freelance editors. They will charge by the page, and depending on the size of the manuscript, will take about 2-3 weeks to finish.

[Starbuck_Jones]

The manuscript has been through 4 edits at this stage. The first two were brutal and took me 15 hours to apply the first round and another 15 for the second. The 3rd edit I sat with an editor and over a weekend went through every line in the book and the final edit only corrected a few mistakes I had introduced during the editing process.

I don't doubt that there might still be an error in there somewhere, but we haven't found them. As far as other editing items like character likability, consistency etc. none of these were brought up as issues in the review process from people who have read the story.

I asked people to list 5 things they liked as well as 5 things they did not like. The answers I got were all over the place and not expected. I will take it as a good sign that no one came up with 5 things they did not like and the things they didn't have been addressed where it did not interfere with the story. All said they did not like that they now had to wait for the next book.

[MiRai]

I updated my blog about the status of my book here
http://www.TheEternalGateway.com

Here is the alpha book cover after the 2 hour photo shoot and a bottle of wine later in the basement with my friend. It still has some work like adding my name to it and some of the cropping cut her feet off. Note to self. Drink after the work is done.

*Ahem*

Wine? Attractive friend? Leather?!

Two hours and only two photos? Perhaps there are a few more photos that you would care to share with the
dual-boxing community?

No, but really... looking good man!

[Kang]

I don't doubt that there might still be an error in there somewhere, but we haven't found them.

Having edited and published scores of books, I can tell you with out fear of contraction when you open your first copy of the printed book you will open it to the page with the one error you missed It always happens.

I've been working a lot with the ePub format the past couple of years. If you get stuck or want a second opinion on it let me know.

[Khatovar]

Having edited and published scores of books, I can tell you with out fear of contraction when you open your first copy of the printed book you will open it to the page with the one error you missed It always happens.

I've been working a lot with the ePub format the past couple of years. If you get stuck or want a second opinion on it let me know.

Is true! lol

Gaiman's First Law: Picking up your first copy of a book you wrote, if there's one typo, it will be on the page that your new book falls open to the first time you pick it up.

[Starbuck_Jones]

I have around 170 photos and over an hour of High Def video Fenril.

I just got my account approved by Lightning Source. They are a printing company linked to Ingram Book company. Getting my word doc into the specific pdf standards that they require for a paperback looks to be challenging.

Cover feedback has been mostly positive. A few negative comments about her ass is about all anyone has come up with, and those I have dismissed because they read like a troll post and do not provide any reasoning behind why they don't like it. Color scheme options have been talked about, but again, suggestions and reasons other than someone does not like the color yellow, isn't much to work with. When the file is in a 120 pixel wide thumbnail, the yellow Requiem is easily readable and stands out.

Feed back about the series title. "The Eternal Gateway"'s lettering I agree with, I will prolly just remove it all together and save "The Eternal Gateway - book one" for the spine. The cover is what people see on amazon and Barnes and Noble so it is the customer facing advertisement. So any trick I can come up with to get someone to click on it, is important. Easy to read on a thumbnail, and sex sells.

Here is to hoping it works.

[Starbuck_Jones]

Yesterday was the big day and other than one hiccup that I can see, everything looks to be going well. I uploaded Requiem to Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Both sites have my book listed for sale. Barnes and Noble's site looks better for the product description. I do not know what happened with Amazon's web site. It looks like there are spaces missing and extra or missing carriage returns. Unfortunately it has not updated in the KDP control panel so I can edit it.

Lightning Source is the printer company I went with and so far everything seems to be ok with them as well. I should be receiving a proof copy of the book sometime next week.

Finally seeing my book on Amazon and B&N the feeling of accomplishment happened. My parents, friends and family members have been congratulating me since the rough draft was finished but it wasn't until last night when the little copies sold number changed from 0 to 1 that I did the "Win Spin" lol and i've been grinning ever since.

I updated my signature to the online stores as well as my blog. Now im off to write book two.

[Svpernova09]

wtb signed copy