So tired...

...of typos.

And reviews about typos.... Maybe I shouldn't complain, since people are actually leaving reviews (whether they be good or bad... I take them all) and reviews draw in readers. But I work so damn hard on these books... it's just tiring when people make it seem like I just threw it online all  willie nillie and called it a day. [Side note: I did do this a little bit with KM1, but it was more that I was excited to release it and not because I was lazy. I've revised it now, but I'm sure there will be a mistake of two or five million.]

Two points: (1) Writing and editing are two different things in my process; writing = story telling, character development, plot, etc., and editing = fixing grammatical errors, typos, and other such things at a sentence level; and (2) it is VERY hard to edit your own work.

No, three points: (3) It's very hard to edit your own work when you've looked at the same manuscript three or more times.

I just needed to get that out there.

I'd also like to mention that I'm just as frustrated by typos as readers are. I'm a perfectionist. I'm a virgo. I need these things to be perfect and they aren't and that bothers me... but I can't spend my entire life editing my KM series. Maybe one day I'll make enough money to hire someone to edit them and create killer covers... until then... they are what they are.

Thank you for letting me vent, blog world.

Now, let me return to Hostile Kisses. I feel like it's pointless to aspire to a completely clean manuscript... but I'll try.

Killing Memories: Revision Now Available

I finished up my Nook edit of KILLING MEMORIES tonight and have posted the new version on Amazon and Smashwords (it'll be available on Barnes and Noble and other retailers soon).

I basically cleaned up sentences and fixed typos and grammatical errors. Hopefully it's more presentable now. If you decide to download the revised version, be sure that is says "Revised 2013" on the copyright page or after the book summary. Or look for the revised cover.

I can now put 100% focus in my Nook edit of Hostile Kisses! For the life of me, I can only really work on one project at a time.

New cover ideas

So, I haven't been 100% happy with my book covers. Not that they weren't well designed or anything like that, just that they didn't quite fit with other covers out there now in the ebook world. So, I've been playing around with a few ideas. I'm going to keep searching for a new image for cover three, but I'm kinda liking the rest. Thoughts?

If I do decide to change the covers, I'll do so with the update of KM1, which will be coming soon (I'm about 150 pages away from completing it).

In other news, I am still plugging away on my Nook edit of Hostile Kisses--making good progress there. I'm switching back and forth between KM1 and HK. My hope is to release them around the same time. The KM1 update will probably come first. I'm not quite sure when either will be out. My hope is by the end of July or early August, but we'll see.

I hope everyone is enjoying Killing Models! Please be sure to leave a review.

Next Up to Bat...

So, now that KM4 is done (yay) and posted online (double yay), I'm moving on to my next project. Of late, it has been my nook edit of KM1 (I'm about 40 pages away from the end). I'm basically cleaning it up--trying to catch all the little typos, tense errors, missing words, etc., that I missed because I skipped this (now crucial) edit. So, once that's done, I'll be uploading a revised version. Note, there are no big changes in this edit. I'm deleting some sentences, but not any that do anything to change the story overall.

Once I'm done with KM1, I'll move on to my Nook edit of HOSTILE KISSES. I love Daisy and Adam's story. It's a little more serious (ie, Estela's not around to cause crazy mischief and do stupid things, but she does make an appearance), and the tone is different (because it's Daisy's point of view). I hope that people enjoy it just as much as the KM series.

I don't know that KILLING MODELS will be the last of Estela and Moo. I'm sure that there are more possible stories, but I never like to force things. Because nothing's coming to me at the moment, I can't promise a new Es and Moo book. KM1-KM4 are separate stories, but they're linked too. I feel like  they should be read in order for the best experience. And because I know my patterns, I wonder if I'll be able to write just one more KM book or if I'll have another large arch that spans over three books. I feel like I'm too grandiose. :) I sometimes wonder if I'll ever be able to tone down the scope of my novels. Most of them range close to 500 pages (sometimes longer)--so, that's almost 2000 pages across the four KM books.

So, yeah. No KM5... yet. Maybe one day.

After Hostile Kisses, I plan on writing something new. Writing!! I haven't written anything in a very long time. So, I want to get a good draft of a new novel done before I start working on editing A STARTER BOYFRIEND, which was one of the last novels that I published on FictionPress. Some of you may have read that one. It's a stand alone novel (my first!).

I also plan on participating in NaNoWriMo this year. Depending on timing, I might start writing that new novel in November, or maybe I'll get lucky and will write TWO novels this year. It's possible--I just have to switch gears and bunker down. 

Killing Models Release

KILLING MODELS will be available on Nook and Amazon in 12 hours (so, by 8am EST June 10, 2013). It will also be available through Smashwords, but right now the site isn't working quite right. You can find and buy the book if you look up my Smashwords profile (click the second one in the list, the first has a few formatting errors), but I recommend waiting a day or so until the site is working properly.

Happy reading!

I'm a little embarrassed...

So... I've started my Nook edit of KM1. If you recall, I didn't do this step before releasing Killing Memories. As reviews came in about grammar errors, I was frustrated because I felt that there weren't grammar errors; they were typos. 

Ummmm, no.

These are grammar errors.

Typos aren't any better, but there's something about telling a writer that their grammar's bad that stings a little.

The problem is that when I first wrote KM1, I wrote the first half in first person present tense (for example: "Stop looking at me!" I yell. Instead of yelled). [Hostile Kisses is written in first person, present tense. It's a little tricky going from that to past tense, but I'm managing.] I'm not sure why I decided to change the tense for book 1. I think it was because it wasn't coming out organically--it didn't sound right. Making that change involved a lot of heavy rewriting, and I obviously missed little things here and there. It's not just missed tenses though--there are a lot of little things that I'm catching. I wish I'd thought to do the Nook edit for KM1. Oh well, live and learn!

It's kinda fun revisiting book 1 again! I hope that I can make it stronger and hopefully reduce the amount of reviews that say: "this is dumb" (not helpful!).

Concerned

So, Barnes and Noble is changing their independent publisher platform from PubIt! to Nook Press. I'm concerned about this because I think in the transition between the two things are getting lost in translation. My sales have been pretty steady since the beginning of the year, but in the past two days I haven't had any. I don't really understand that and it concerns me. Plus, I can't sign up with Nook Press, which frustrates me. I'm considering the temporary removal of my books from B&N until they figure out what they're doing. The only downside of this is that B&N is the best platform for my books (although Amazon is slowly picking up speed).

I don't know what to do now... I need to figure it out before KM4 goes live.

When might that be, you ask?

I don't know... I hope by the end of the month. My fingers are crossed.