Challenges in E-Formatting

I'm going to go off topic for fiction today and talk about my experience with formatting The Enthusiastic Networker.

 

This poor manuscript went through too many formats. It started life as a series of Constant Contact newsletter articles that I cut and pasted into a text document. Those ended up in Open Office, and eventually into Word, where they went through at least two rounds of track changes. One last trip to text so I could format the HTML.

 

It shouldn't have been a problem. The last conversion to plain text should have cleaned it up, but no. I still had odd quotes and apostrophes that didn't convert well to ebooks format. Some research and global find and replace finally got it cleaned up, and it converted well to Kindle. I think. If you buy the e-version and find problems, let me know, okay?

 

What did I learn from this? Only one word processing program per manuscript. That makes it so much easier. I guess I could also have decided to pay someone else for the conversion, but where's the fun in that?

Making Some Progress

As I said last week, right now I'm using this blog as a way to hold myself accountable to moving forward on the books. And it's not going as well as I'd hoped.

Thank goodness for my tablet. I used to think of writing as something you do sitting at your desk, on a computer. I know, for other people, it's legal pads and a pen or a typewriter, but I'm rubbish with both of those, and I've done almost all my writing on a computer.

Right now, it's when I can, where I can. On Monday, I was sitting in my truck, 15 minutes early for a meeting, writing a new scene on my tablet. It's not as fast, but that day it was the difference between something and nothing. I opted for something.

Now I need to get my draft broken up into tablet-sized pieces so I can edit on the go to. The way my life is going, I think that's the only way this'll get done.

Good news is I'm liking the new scene and character, and I think Pat, who won the contest to be the character, will like him too. I expect we're going to see a lot more of Father Eyler. :)

Update on Writing

I know I've been inconsistent with updating this lately, but my goal is to change that, no so much for you readers but for me. When I neglect this blog, I also tend to neglect my writing.

My reasons are kind of good. My coaching business has picked up, and I'm doing more and different work than last year, much of it some sort of writing. But I love this fiction series, and I don't want to abandon it.

So, my goal for the next few weeks? I need to get Werewolf in shape. All beta reader feedback is in. I have a new character to add from the contest on my Facebook page. My editor is lined up and ready. Time to get something to her.

Watch this space. This will be where I hold myself accountable.