Month: November 2014

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Answer Me This If You Can

Editor

Editor at work – Yeh right!

For as long as I’ve been writing full time (nineteen years), one aspect of our chosen career path has always bothered me.

We all know that writers in publishing house stables are expected to apply all the corrections that their editors have found. Why should Indies suffer this totally illogical practice as well? For many, myself included, we parted company with traditional publishing to get away from this less than satisfactory aspect of the writing game, and the often dictatorial way in which publishers rule over their writers, amongst other things.

I’ve given up counting the number of times I’ve heard fellow Indie’s complain about their editors, and the hard won money they’ve spent on their sometimes dubious services.

If you take the sensible decision to go it alone and self edit, you find the errors and correct them. Whereas if you pay for an editor’s services, while they give the impression of doing a ‘professional’ job, what do they actually do for their often exhorbitant fee? I’ll tell you. Not enough! They only do half a job, then send it back to you to do the rest. What’s the point? A writer can do all of that themselves and for no cost to them except time.

Yes your editor will tell you that they have judiciously gone through your manuscript, purportedly working their way through your story word by word, line by line, paragraph by paragraph, picking up on bad grammar, spelling mistakes, incorrect punctuation, plus suggesting you change this or that aspect of your story as if it was them who wrote the darned story, so that when pedants, armchair critics and literary snobs challenge you (and believe me they will), you can honestly say that your work was professionally edited.

Big deal!

Logic dictates that if someone is employing you as an editor to find all of the errors, that once found, you should correct them, not send the manuscript back to the writer to do your job for you! Otherwise, what’s the point of employing you in the first place. If a writer does the sensible thing and sends their manuscript to a few dedicated beta readers, hopefully they will point out any and all errors for free!

Remember this, no book is ever perfect. Even the very best editors employed by the major publishing houses will miss the minutiae, after all they are human just like the rest of us. Paying for an editor’s services, as they stand at the moment, is a waste of money. Before you even begin to show a profit from the sales of your books, you have to recoup your financial outlay first, ie, editing, layout, cover design. From a financial point of view its far better that you do it all yourself. Thinking about it, so-called professional editors are little more than professional pedants.

If you are a truly dedicated Indie writer, don’t think that once you have written your manuscript that you have finished. You haven’t. Your work has only just begun. Above all don’t fall into the trap that your manuscript need the services of a paid ‘professional’ editor. It doesn’t. If you are any damned good, you will do it yourself!

End of lesson…

😉

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Goodbye Goblin Tales for Adults

gvdggtfa

Globular Van der Graff’s “Goblin Tales for Adults” is dead, or it soon will be…

I’ve just unpublished it at KDP, and asked both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk to eliminate it from my list of books. With only two more tales to go, I’m almost ready to publish the replacement, Goblin Tales, just in time for Christmas.

Keep your eyes peeled for the new version from December the 1st, or soon after, because that’s when I’ll be uploading it to KDP. Then you can purchase your Kindle copy at your nearest Amazon outlet. As for its paper back version. Once its up and running as a Kindle book, I’ll then upload it to Createspace so that its paperback version can be made available as well.

Goblin Tales

PS – If you miss it, don’t worry. I’ll let you know here with its new Kindle link for Amazon.com. In which case all you will need to do is click on its cover.

PPS –  Here’s a gentle reminder for the mentally challenged among us. Unless you like being disappointed, don’t try clicking on either of the covers shown here on this post because neither of them are linked to Amazon.

😀 😀 😀

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Cataclysm – now available in paperback

index

Cataclysm is now available in paperback as well as an eBook

Click on the cover for paperback or the highlighted word for the Kindle version

Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A challenging, passionate book November 24, 2014
By Nicholas C. Rossis
Format:Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
Cataclysm carries distinct echoes of Daeniken’s Chariots of the Gods. The premise is exciting, if somewhat familiar: an ingenious scientist builds a time machine and uses it to discover the truth behind humanity’s creation. What sets apart Cataclysm from similar books is the author’s passionate take on various subjects, from religion to third gender rights. For many, this will be the book’s strongest point.

However, it occasionally meant focusing on one subject but skimming through another. For example, the time travelers come across a city in the Black Sea, 3 mil. years ago. I expected a detailed description of such an amazing discovery; instead, the whole episode is over in a few pages. Oh the other hand, the hero’s apartment is described in exhaustive detail, and an anti-religious speech takes up a number of pages. Similarly, the ending felt somewhat rushed, with a strangely indirect resolution.

Still, if you’re not easily offended and are looking for a challenging, passionate book and an interesting story, this is a book worth checking out.

4.0 out of 5 stars A Ripping Yarn! November 7, 2014
By Derek
Format:Kindle Edition
Jack Eason spins another of his ripping yarns in, Cataclysm. His rich knowledge of history along with ancient myths and legends thread through each page, and true to his unique storytelling style, it is punctuated with the occasional pithy dash of the language and dry humour that marks his Kiwi and English upbringing. While Cataclysm has an element of science fiction to it, it is in the historical facts, and myths, which are intertwined with the present that make this such a good read.
5.0 out of 5 stars Read and ponder! November 3, 2014
By Chris Graham aka The Story Reading Ape
Format:Kindle Edition
I was lucky enough to be a Beta Reader of this book prior to publishing and can tell you that it is not JUST a ‘science fiction / time travel / action / thriller / romance with a difference’ story that will grip you from the start and keep you gripped throughout.
It will also make you wonder if there might be an element of truth behind the premise of the fiction.
5.0 out of 5 stars Controversially revolutionary November 9, 2014
By Gordon Wulff
Format:Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
This is an example of an extraordinary author with a voluminous knowledge to share. Cataclysm is a wonderful beginning of a series that will captivate the world. Jack has dealt so well with some difficult topics and expounded upon them quite eloquently. I am thoroughly invested in this concept.
Thank you Jack
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Globular Van der Graff’s “Goblin Tales for Adults” is about to be reborn

Goblin Tales

The Updated Cover For Glob’s Tales

Almost there folks. I have five more tales to rework. Thanks to the artist who conceived the original picture I used for both versions of the cover for Glob’s Tales – Alexey Kuznetsov, and a good friend in the US who worked his magic by changing the wording on the book Glob is reading, you see before you the updated cover. The white lettering is my humble contribution. 😉

Click on the new cover to see it properly, as with the map below.

As for the Goblindom map, thanks to Duncan Niall Boswell, the person responsible for drawing it, it has also been updated.

The Time Before Map

Updated map of Goblindom

Because Amazon has no plans whatsoever of updating all existing bought copies of Globular Van der Graff’s “Goblin Tales for Adults”, or any other eBook come to that, once Goblin Tales is ready I’m left me with only one choice.

I’ll delete the original from my list of books for purchase on Amazon and replace it with this updated version. For any of you who have bought a copy of the original version, and graciously left a positive review using your own name and not a pseudonym, if you want a free .pdf or .mobi copy, let me know here and we’ll work something out. The easiest way would be for you to give me your email address and your electronic file preference. If you are worried about making your email address public, don’t be. Just add it in a comment below this post and I’ll copy and paste it before removing it. 😉

Hopefully once people no longer see the ‘for adults’ bit, they will feel inclined to buy a copy and enjoy reading it. Deleting the original, means that all of the twenty five reviews on Amazon.com, and the ten on Amazon.co.uk will also disappear. This cannot be helped. If any of you were responsible for the positive reviews, may I suggest that you go directly from here to your respective Amazon sites and copy them, so that once Goblin Tales is up and running, if you feel like it, you can then paste your review once again.

Don’t worry folks, I won’t be updating Goblin Tales again. So in a week or so, it will be adios to Globular Van der Graff’s “Goblin Tales for Adults”, and a hearty welcome to its reincarnation.

PS – here’s hoping the damned trolls, pedants, armchair critics, grammar nazis and literary snobs leave it alone this time…

😀 😀 😀