With only one week left before the release of my first book, I thought it might be good to give an update on my progress.
Jet Screamer isn’t quite finished yet, but I have passed my word count goal of 25000 words. Now I’m editing and fleshing out the shorter chapters, adding details and cutting out the fluff I don’t need.
I have thirteen working chapter titles. My initial goal was ten, so the extras give me flexibility to include them all in this book or save some for a later volume. If you’re curious, the chapter titles are (in no particular order):
‘Picnicker’ and Other Insults
Mt. McLoughlin (The Hard Way)
The Butcher
Yellow Jacket, Where is Thy Sting?
Pillow Boxing
Like a Blind Cow…
The Swimming Trough
Travels With Chumley
Jet Screamer
The Skinny Dip
To Air is You, Man
Perfectly Good Gristle
The Death March
Of these thirteen, I have seven finished and ready to go, four in rough draft, and two more that are basically nothing more than conceptual. Ideally, I’ll be able to finish ten at a bare minimum, and save the rest for later in the trilogy.
Other progress: Today I have to buy ISBN numbers. These are a bit expensive, but cheaper if you buy them in bulk. Amazon will be happy to provide me with one when I publish, but then they get credited as the publisher. If I provide my own ISBN, I can be listed as the publisher of record and if for any reason I ever want to print the book with another vendor, I can do that. Free ISBNs don’t always give you that option, so I’m biting the bullet and getting my own.
Some of you may have seen my lame attempt at illustration for my book cover here.
If so, don’t worry – I went on Fiverr and found a great artist from Australia to do a cover for me. I’ll take his drawing and incorporate it into a cover design, but here’s his work as he sent it to me:
Hilarious – thanks, Sam!
If you’d like a fast, inexpensive caricature done, I highly recommend Sam. You can find him on Fiverr.com under the name ‘idrawcartoons’.
So, that’s it so far.
For the rest of this week, I’ll be using my free time to finish the final draft; finish the cover by adding the title and byline to Sam’s drawing using Gimp; getting the book formatted correctly for uploading to Kindle Direct Publishing; and setting up my author account on Amazon.
Stay tuned – I’ll update again as the launch gets closer!
Looking forward to it, Mac!
Thanks Ern! I’ll be in touch – I’m working on your project too!
Just the chapter names evoke laughter, as I remember the events that (probably) inspired them! I can’t wait to read them!
BTW, if I don’t have a Kindle… can I still get the book? It may be a dumb question, but it was begging to be asked 😉
Berta,
Not a dumb question at all. You can get a free Kindle app for your desktop or laptop if you have an account on Amazon. Free. Nada dinero. Gratis. So yes – you can still get the book, but you do have to have some form of Kindle reader, since the only place it’ll be published is on Amazon.
Glad you picked up on the chapter names – I’m having a blast writing them, so they should be fun to read, too!
So glad you used the photo to do your caricature (I stole it from Martin’s Facebook page)
…and I, in turn, stole it from your page. I don’t remember ever having seen that one, so you posted it at an opportune time – thanks for that!
Berta,
YES! You can download the Kindle app for your computer and use that for reading Kindle stuff.
Hmmpphhh. I coulda saved the effort of educating Berta if I’d have known you were gonna do it.
Thunder stealer.