Book Formatting – Author Artist

Posted on October 14, 2023October 14, 2023 by lindameckler9

Self-Published Editing

When I read a book the first page, I look at is the page with the date of publishing.

When I’m reading the book, I can easily find mistakes. Missing words in a sentence are easy to spot.

Then there are the misaligned sentences.

Incorrect: What I mean by that is when I read a book and the words

in the sentence are dropped in the middle.

Correct: What I mean by that is when I read a book and the words in the sentence are dropped in the middle.

Before I became an author, I never noticed missing words, dropped sentences, punctuation, or quotation marks. But now I do.

The thing that drives me crazy is the quotation marks in the wrong place.

Wrong: “I am going to the store”.

Correct: “I am going to the store.”

In my book Editing Fiction Mistakes. In this book, it demonstrates the correct and incorrect usage of punctuation.

I am not an expert but when I was teaching a class on book formatting and book publishing, I wrote this book with the continuous mistakes I saw.

Posted on April 19, 2023April 19, 2023 by lindameckler9

Writing Class

For the last twenty years I have been writing books. They are all on Amazon.com. There are children to adult, adult, fiction and non-fiction. That about covers almost every category of books.

I had never taken a writing class. Now I go once a week to a writing class. There are fifteen people in the class. We all write 4 pages and then I read in the front of the class what I have written.

The other authors give phrase and criticism. We each bring enough copies of the 4 pages to give to each author in the room. This is where I get written editing corrections and other phrases.

I have learned much from this class. I enjoy it because it’s what I love to do write. This is what the others in the class do write.

If you do not have a class you can take in your area start one.

Posted on March 23, 2023March 23, 2023 by lindameckler9

Writer’s How to Publish Free

I’ve written a book. Now what? What do I do with it? The first thing I think of is a publisher costs money. The next thing is a professional editor and of course I need a cover.

All these things cost money and I am not counting copyright expenses or a ISBN number.

These are the expenses I will need to think about when I want to publish my book.

I will tell you, my story. My first two books I published I went through a publishing company. It was expensive. But then I kept writing and I could not afford to self-publish my next book or the books after that.

I learned how to do everything myself and guess what it didn’t cost me a cent.

Then I taught a class at a senior school and now many people who didn’t think they could become a published author achieved their goal.

After my teaching career was concluded I wrote two books. Writer’s How to Publish Free and Editing Fiction Mistakes.

If you truly want to become a published author read my book Writer’s How to Publish Free and the book with the most common fiction mistakes Editing Fiction Mistakes.

Thank you for reading my article.

Posted on March 13, 2023March 23, 2023 by lindameckler9

Audio Books

I have learned how to format and publish e-books, paperback books, and hardcover books. Now I am off to a new goal. Audiobooks. I am going to tackle the hardest format yet. There is a huge market for audiobooks.

I tried years ago to create my own audiobook with my voice. I purchased some software on the computer. It would take 10 CDs to complete the book. I was onto cd number 5 when everything crashed. I never tried again.

I watched a web meeting and the man who was hosting it made it sound easy. I am going to try again. All I needed was 3 things.

A microphone.

A filter for the microphone.

Over-the-ear headphones.

The hardest part was the editing. I hope I can do this. I want to do the entire book from start to finish on my own. At my age, it is unbelievable to reach a new goal.

I hope, all you authors out there, or who want to be authors will start a new goal.

My book Writer’s How To Publish Free is for formatting and publishing e-books, paperback, hardcover books.

Whatever, it is go for it.

Posted on June 29, 2021June 29, 2021 by lindameckler9

Can I get a book agent?

I have been on the assumption for years while I was writing my numerous books that book agents were almost non-existent.

I thought the only way they would be interested in a book if it was from a criminal or somebody in the government.

In other word’s some kind of scandal.

The publishing companies years ago stopped taking manuscripts from first time authors. The slush pile was gone. But I ask you, how can you find a good author for your next best-selling book if you don’t accept a book from the slush fund.

I stopped submitting my manuscripts to a publishing company I felt it was a waste of paper, envelopes and postage.

I started listening to webinars on my phone and maybe it isn’t hopeless to get an agent.

What do you think? Frustration is the word for all authors.

When Writing a query letter

Attention: a specific person

Only words no pictures

300 words total

Hook- For first sentence

Example: Marriage can be a real killer

There is simply not enough room in a trunk for stuff and a Dentist

Description 100-150 words

Grammar and punctuation correct

Fiction

Character

Desire

Conflicts

solve problem

Non-fiction

Solve problem in your own way

Writing and Editing

I have been using Microsoft Word Software since 2003. To be truthful that software had many good points to it than the later software. The next Microsoft Word software I used was 2007. I used this software on my laptop computer until I purchased a new computer. With the new computer I also purchased the newest version of Microsoft Word at that time. I noticed a few changes in the software and I was happy.

Then my computer had to go to the doctor in the middle of writing a book. At midnight I was looking for my old computer and found it. But it had not been on electricity for four years and I couldn’t use it until the next morning. But what blew me away was this. I used under the review ribbon the spelling and grammar. This is very important to me. I could not believe my eyes when the older version of Microsoft Word 2007 was better than the newer version.

I now have my computer back from the computer doctor but I will still be using my old one for the final check for spelling and grammar.

Microsoft Word what are you doing?

Thank you for reading my article.