Authors Electric

Copy-editing is the thing I hate most about being an Independent Author. It’s a grinding, methodical task that takes a lot of time and concentration and it has to be absolutely perfect, because one of the main criticisms of Indie published books is the standard of proof-reading and copy-editing.  I’m still being sent books for review that are littered with typos, punctuation and formatting errors. I don’t want mine to be one of them, but my books simply don’t earn enough to pay a professional - for a full-length book it can be as much as £750.  I can’t afford that as well as the advice of a good structural editor - and the latter, for me, is of the utmost importance. I’ve been doing the copy-editing myself, reading and re-reading, but something always slips through and I hate it!  Your eyes see what they think should be there rather than what is actually there.  And then you die of shame as soon as it’s up there on Kindle and someone points out what you’ve misse...

           I can use about 1% of my computer's functions, and about the same on my camera. Our lives these days are filled with gadgets that can do far more than we ever have the time or inclination to figure out.           So in the helpful spirit that sparks and crackles from Authors Electric, I thought I'd pass on a few of the things I've learned about my Kindle. I daresay you already know many, but I hope there may be just one little wrinkle that's new to you.              Kindles are wonderful tools for writers.  Not only can you use them to check the appearance of any e-books you’re creating, but you can use them for proof-reading.            If you give talks, you can put your notes on the kindle and read them from ther e (which still strikes many people as 'cool'.)      ...

MITSAKES In Junior school, I was proud and precocious, and rather good at English.   When my teacher, Mr Bart, called me to his desk to tell me that I had mis-spelt ‘all right’ as alright, I was indignant.   Of COURSE it was ‘alright.’   He patiently explained that I had used an American version of the two word English expression.   I refused to believe him.   I harboured a resentment for years. I know this does not put me in a very good light.   But it was the first time I’d come up against correctness in English, and the passion it engenders in people.   A comma, or not a comma?   The moral turpitude of those who dare to end sentences with prepositions!   The ignorant misuse of apostrophes!   The English language must be defended against the invading hordes of modernity and sloppiness! Years studying English, then teaching it and then even more years of proof-reading my own novels and other writing, have given me...

The Amber Heart: eBook version .           Most writers who have been published in the conventional way will have stories about good and bad editors. My worst experience was with an editor who rewrote substantial sections of my novel without using any kind of track changes software. It was only when I read through the manuscript that I thought, 'I didn't write that... or that ... or that.'           Because this was a novel which had started life as a series of plays, and was set on a remote Scottish island, I had a very precise idea of how my characters would speak, and what would work. This wasn't incomprehensible dialect. It was more to do with the rhythm and musicality of speech which is such a feature of the area. She had ironed out these differences. When, at a key point in the novel, my Hebridean hero says to the heroine, 'I think I will just have to keep you!', she twice chan...