The Joys of Publishing…

Before I jump in on this week’s story, I wanted to give you a quick glimpse into the world of self-publishing–or at least one hurdle I’ve been dealing with–fixing tiny mistakes after the book is released.

I’m definitely no perfectionist, but I do my best to avoid putting out any writing that includes typos or other mistakes that can take people out of a story or give the impression that I’m not serious about my writing. I know–if you read my stuff, you’re asking yourself (and I can hear you), “Can he be serious about ANYTHING?”

After releasing the Kindle version of my latest book, I discovered some typos, a few formatting errors, and even some things that were technically correct, but I still wanted to make changes that would improve the writing. Fortunately, in the world of eBooks, it’s really easy to fix, so all future readers will get the latest version.

Unfortunately, two tiny fixes got past me, and when the initial paperbacks were delivered, I saw them. One typo bothered me enough that I thought it was worth paying for the fix, so that’s what I did. Again, the beauty of print-on-demand allows that. If I were using a traditional publisher, books would be printed in advance and I’d be living with the mistakes forever. Not so in this case. All that to say that when paperbacks hit the streets in a few weeks, I’ll be feeling a lot better about it…until somebody finds another goof. Stay tuned.

OK. Now on to the Story of the week. Prompt provided by Michael B.

    They Took His Only Daughter

Despite being rich, Phil Bruner never anticipated his daughter’s kidnapping.

“We paid the ransom but then they demanded a second payment,” Bruner said.

“That’s typical,” Detective Mahoney nodded.

He eyed the briefcase.

“That the cash for the next payment?”

“Yeah, but now I’m really scared because they said ‘no cops’ so we didn’t call. What if they’re watching the house, and also…how’d you find out?”

“The bank called. Large cash withdrawals/nervous customers. It’s standard procedure.”

Bruner paled. “We never went to the bank.”

Mahoney whipped out a .45 and grabbed the briefcase.

“Even better. And don’t forget—no cops.”

Prompt: I thought I could trust them

In other book news, a few weeks ago I mentioned doing appearances at Rotary clubs and other service organizations. The first Rotary gig (in Salinas) went really well and now I have three more booked with a fourth getting finalized later today. If you know any potential candidates for me, like all Cornfields, I’m all ears.

Finally, in my homage to criminals returning to the scene of the crime, I’ll be making another appearance at Barnes & Noble in Gilroy. It looks like I’ll be there on August 20th, but I haven’t gotten the final final on it yet. As soon as I do, you’ll read about it here.

Thanks for coming along for this week’s journey.

Scotty out