Thursday, January 31, 2013

Good readers

Every writer needs good readers. Yes, it's wonderful when someone reads your book and says, "Gee, I really liked it." That helps (a lot). But it's more important when a reader notifies me that there's a mistake in the book. Horrors!

One of my nephews read Xmas Carol last week. Really enjoyed it, too, judging by his remarks. But he also noticed three places in the book where I referred to a character by name, when I really meant to refer to a different character. It's so easy to miss something when proofing a (gigantic) manuscript. That's why observant readers are so important.

Although lots of people read the book, no one else noticed these mistakes. Conor, I owe you. Later this week, I'm going to work up a new version that eliminates the errors. Then I'll upload the book to Amazon again (and to Smashwords, which is a great book store that gets your book out to all the sellers.) And at the same time, I'll use the opportunity to thank Casey Shain in the introduction. He's the artist who came up with the killer cover for "Xmas Carol". Somehow, I forgot to thank him when I first uploaded the book.

While we're on the topic, I see there's a new review at Amazon today. Five stars (so far, all the reviews of "Xmas Carol" at Amazon are five stars). Here's what it says:
this book is worth every penny! i haven't been able to put my kindle down while reading it.more from the author please! 
Short, but I'll take it!