26 Comments

  1. Thanks for the mentions, Edie. On the adult content, this is, just the rule I use, but since there is no written description anywhere that I have seen as to what constitutes “adult content,” it seems like a fair decider.
    And on the rtf, it isn’t so much the piracy thing. I don’t think there is anything that can stop piracy. It is more that I see no reason to make a text file, like an rtf, of my work available so easily. There are zero barriers to editing a file of that type–just open it in your word processing program and do as you will. At least with the other formats some effort has to be made. 🙂 In today’s world anytime you put your work out for the world to see, it is with some element of trust that for the most part people do want to treat the creators of that work fairly.

  2. Lori, I have sex scenes in my books, but I don’t do graphic descriptions, so I was waffling about whether “adult content” fit my books or not. Your comment made a difference to me.

    Thanks for explaining the rtf thing. I don’t know why Smashwords has that option available.

  3. Edie, great tips–thanks! For the adding author content at Author Central (AC)…a tip I figured out was that if you copy what you want to add to into Word Notepad, get rid of all the goofy characters or formatting, then copy/paste into AC from there, it doesn’t get all goofed up. That’s how I fixed the stuff I’d added from AC.

  4. Stacey, good to know. Thanks! Someone also said there’s an html option at Author Central. But since I set mine up at KDP, I’ll stick with that for now.

  5. Edie, THANK YOU!!! As always, you are an AMAZING source of information! I have not ventured into the world of indie-publishing (yet), but I certainly am trying to pay attention to everything I hear and read – ESPECIALLY when it comes from you!!!

    -Kathleen

  6. Cynthia, thank YOU for emailing about my error in the blog, letting me know that I had “When choosing your formats, choose them all accept rtf” instead of except. It’s funny because I started the post talking about copy edit errors that our eyes slide over. I know Lori Devoti read this, too, and didn’t catch it, either.

  7. Edie, I’ve changed my description through Amazon Central and it hasn’t made anything a mess….maybe something has changed or maybe that was just a particular experience?

  8. Edie,

    Sadly, even after paying two professional editors to edit Forged for me, I STILL had readers emailing me with lists of errors. Yeah, so embarrassing. I’d skipped one last crucial step in the editing process, sending the final/clean book out to numerous pairs of “fresh” eyes for a final proofing. Patti, a multi-published CP with various NY houses reminded me that traditional books go through layers of editing. Including a copy/line editor, and several proofing editors, but even then when the galleys arrive for review, there are always errors in them. She said she combs through the galleys, her mother combs through them, her agent combs through them and she has several friends with excellent eyes comb through them. This is the step I should have followed before uploading. *sigh* Live and learn.

    Courtney said virtually the same thing in her series of editing articles. It’s too bad I didn’t read those first.

    btw- the reason I didn’t put “this book has been professionally edited and formatted” in the blurb- is because someone contacted me from the loop who is extremely anti-Indie. She was asking when Forged was going up and wanted to know why my publisher didn’t have it for pre-order. She didn’t realize from cover, blurb and first chapter it was being self-published. Which on the loops she claims she can tell just by the cover and blurb. And I realized that for readers like her, who are so biased about Indie books. Putting that the book had been professional edited/formatted is going to alert them to the fact the book is an Indie and they will turn away. But if they can’t actually tell its self-published, they may buy it without ever knowing. *g

  9. Interesting information, Edie. Amazing, all the things we don’t know we don’t know about ebooks. Kind of exciting to be a pioneer, huh?

  10. Cathleen, I was just at your website. Wow! Congrats on your success. And that German cover is very…naked. lol I see that you do editing, too, at very reasonable prices.

    Thanks for passing it on to Facebook!

  11. Trish, I know about those errors. I had to go in and change 3 on my blog today. 3 different times! A friend had told me about one. I caught another myself. And then this afternoon, I saw another one. Those little buggers just sneak in there…

    As I’m reading your book, I was thinking that Forged in Fire would be just the kind of book that publishers are looking for. I think it will be a hit, and you’re smart to go indie and get more of the royalties for yourself.

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