I’ve really enjoyed the process of writing, rewriting, finding good editing and proofreading and learning how to manipulate digital photographs to design the covers for two self-published, or indie, print-on-demand books of fiction.
It’s also given me a lot of sympathy for others who try to finish the long and tricky process with a product of more than ordinary merit—and without a lot of “construction dust,” as Austin meteorologist and author Tim Vasquez calls it, meaning typos, misspellings, and grammatical errors. Sympathy, but sometimes little patience.
Including little patience for those who enjoy sneering at such work (“I only got to page 45″), comparing it to mainstream publishing’s allegedly more exacting standards. Maybe in the past, but no more. I’m always reading a book and I find almost as many proofreading problems with mainstream stuff as DIY. True, misspellings and bad grammar are less likely in the mainstream but, clearly, in the rush to make a profit not all of the last-minute jobs are being done.
Still, I soldier on, as ever reading and reading, and these days working on a non-fiction book of Texana. Even ebooks are interesting. I still prefer print on paper, but the ebook prices, usually being so much lower than paper products, are enticing.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 