The gist of my rant is the word “couple”. Not the context in which you are talking about two people, but the couple that is used more for generic items, such as minutes, dollars, t-shirts, etc.. It seems that it’s becoming more acceptable to write (or maybe it’s a lack of knowledge in grammar) “Give me a couple more minutes.” To most of you, this may sound correct, but the reality is that the word “couple” in this example is not the correct way to say this.

The word ”couple” should be followed by “of”, i.e. a couple of minutes, or a couple of hours. The issue is that we have slackened the definition of “couple”, and have allowed it to refer to a number that is perhaps more than two. Naturally you can’t have a couple of more minutes. So in reality, the word “more” is actually to blame for the misuse of “couple”. If you want more than a couple of minutes, you should say “a few more minutes”, or even “a few minutes”.

But please, I beg of you, do NOT say a “couple minutes” or a “couple days”. This is only showing your lack of grammatical discipline. If you mean “two”, say “two”. If you mean more than two, don’t use “more”.

Just as an afterword, I realize that I likely break a few grammatical rules as well, but I DO try to keep it as error-free as possible.  DWF

“You gotta go out there and make something of yourself, believe in yourself, and trust in your own abilities, or else the world will pass you by.” Jon Jones, UFC Light-Heavyweight Champ

Something I have been noticing over the last few years is how English Grammar doesn’t seem to be as important anymore. There seems to be a lot more emphasis put on English Literature. How do I know this? I watched my two sons all the way through school and have seen them make these errors. Another reason I know is because I am constantly reading other people’s words and can tell that school curriculums either don’t include contractions any more, or maybe we should put the blame on the students who might have slept through the lessons.

For example, let’s look at the words could, should, and would. Further, let’s add the word have to the mix – could have, should have, and would have. These combinations have a shortcut, which has been deemed acceptable by those in charge of grammar (grammarians or grammatists?). The contractions are could’ve, should’ve, and would’ve. I don’t think this is too hard to comprehend – you drop a couple of letters and add an apostrophe. What could be simpler than that? In my mind, nothing.

So why is it that I keep reading sentences like the following – Well, if we would of been there, we could of done something about it. Do you think we should of? Does anyone else recognize the errors? And can you explain what could of actually means? If not, then it’s time you learned the truth. Just because we pronounce something a certain way, it doesn’t mean we have to write it like it sounds. That’s the beauty (or is that the horror) of the English Language. They say it’s the hardest language to learn, especially if it’s not your first language. Maybe so, but don’t you think that if English is our only language, shouldn’t we at least try to use it properly? What kind of example are we setting here?

Ignorance is no excuse. If you plan to make writing your bread and butter, don’t you owe it to yourself to make your writing as perfect as it can be? Do you think agents are going to drool over your stories if they keep coming across gross errors such as the above examples? If rejection letters are what you want, I guess you just keep writing the same way as always, and you’ll have plenty of rejection letters to read.

And don’t even get me started on acronyms. Yikes!

The stumbling block for me stems from the fact that I am a Canadian. The devil, you say! It’s true, I swear! I need to apply for a tax exemption from none other than the IRS. Now maybe I’ve watched too much tv (American tv) and have this sinking feeling in my stomach. I mean, the IRS has such a reputation… better not get  started on that. Seriously, I don’t have a problem with them, and I hope they won’t have a problem with me. I just want to sell my book in as many places as I possibly can. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

So time drifts on, and I know it’s still very early in the process. I’m getting a better presence on the internet by trying to stay in touch with people on Twitter and Facebook. I still have a lot of confidence in the words I have written, and in time, I suspect people will be talking about AFR…

I didn’t have any unrealistic expectations when I decided to self-publish AFR in print back in 2007. I knew I was working full time back then and didn’t have the time or the resources to do anything more than a minimal amount of marketing. Was it successful? There’s the rub – how do you define “successful”? For me, success was found in the little things. I was able to sell quite a few books to my friends and family and co-workers. I sold a few to people I didn’t know, and I didn’t sell a lot more than that. I was able to do a few readings and signings and had a lot of fun with that. I put on a book launch party (with much help from my number one fan and partner in crime, Janet), and that was a blast. Sixty or so of my friends and co-workers came out to help us celebrate the book’s release. We solved mysteries, ate “book-related” foods (finger-shaped cookies, eyeballs made from gelatine, bones made from meringue), I did a reading and then Q&A with the crowd. We had movie posters on the walls, skull candles, even mystery music playing in the background (Night on Bald Mountain by Mussorgsky). For me, this was success.

And now, I’ve entered a whole new realm of publishing – the eRealm. Before I did any of this, I spent a few hours pouring over different websites, trying to learn as much as I could about eBooks and how to get them out there. There’s so much information available that it can be overwhelming. In fact, it was overwhelming, but then I came across a website called Savvy Self-Publishing. In essence, it’s a blog site devoted to giving tips on self-publishing ebooks through blogging and social media. I began reading some of the posts and felt right at home. It’s as if this invisible person was sitting next to me, showing me how things are done – better qualify that by saying – how she did them. Reading further, I discovered that this invisible person was Lindsay Buroker. Never heard of her, but that’s not saying much coming from an eBook newbie. I found out that she’s been e-pubbing for about a year, and with a degree of success. Maybe it’s the material she writes, maybe it’s not. What I do know is that she had a plan and that plan is now making her money. I’d be a fool not to at least study her methods a bit more closely, wouldn’t I?

Ok, so I’ve spent significant time reading her blogs, watching her Tweets, and I have a bit of a plan going here, but there is so much more that needs to be done. Given the fact that I’m retired now, I should have nothing but time to spend on this, and I suppose that’s true, but I do have a life outside of writing, and that has run a bit of interference lately. However, I will be devoting more of my time to writing, editing, and publishing not only the existing stories I have at this time, but also new material. I don’t have any expectations with this endeavour – if I sell a few eBooks, great, and if I don’t, well I’ll still write because that’s what I love to do. Thank you, Lindsay, for being an inspiration. I hope you continue to have success with your writing. As for me, I’ll let the universe unfold as it should.

I’ll leave you with a quote that I believe is true -

“Success isn’t something that just happens–Success is learned, success is practiced and then it is shared.” -Sparky Anderson

And speaking about AFR, I sold my first eBook today! I know, big deal, right? Actually, I was quite surprised when I got an email from Smashwords.com saying someone had actually downloaded the book. I have no idea who it was, but I sure hope they enjoy the story and maybe they’ll add a comment somewhere. Who knows, I might end up selling another one!

I didn’t realize how many stories were submitted on any given day at Smashwords. When I first uploaded my manuscript, there was a number on my screen that kept changing. As it turns out, the number represented how many submissions were ahead of me. My original number was 2763. That’s hard to comprehend. My first thought was that I’d be lucky to get my manuscript checked by the end of the weekend. But the number kept decreasing and I realized that not everyone in front of me was submitting manuscripts of 105,000 words. There are tons of short stories on Smashwords, and they wouldn’t take as long as mine to be vetted.

I submitted my manuscript at 4:00 p.m and got the word of its acceptance around 10:15 p.m. That made me feel better. But do you think I could get to sleep? Not a chance, so I was up until 1:45 a.m. this morning, following the instructions that Smashwords had sent me to finalize the book (adding the ISBN, etc).

So now I still have to wait for the manuscript to make it into Smashword’s Premium Catalog, which will give me a larger distribution through more online retailers. But for now, the book is live and ready for the world. Fingers and eyes crossed…

There are some short stories that I’ll consider for uploading in the future, but for now, I want to get this first book out there, and give you, the readers, the best product I can give. I think I can finalize my chapter by early next week, and then, there’s no turning back. Hang in there…

The site is live and almost complete. I’m just about to send my manuscript off to Smashwords.com to get approved and converted to the various formats. After that, well, I hope someone will come along and give me a try. I will be trying to tweet as much as possible and I’m also considering Facebook. Stay tuned for that one.

I rarely jump into anything without doing a bit of research first (ok, I’m a bit of an impulse buyer, but that’s different!). While investigating e publishing, one of the  recurring themes on the websites and blogs I visited was that a professionally designed cover was imperative for any degree of success. Now, I’m saying this without one e book being sold. Hell, I still haven’t uploaded the manuscript to Smashwords yet! And still I know that having the right cover can make a difference. And it’s not as expensive as you might think.

Last night, I received an email from my cover designer, Glendon Haddix. I was expecting it, but not for a few days. Even before I opened the email, I began to get a slight shiver up my spine (a bit weird, maybe). I opened the attachment and just stared at it. It was kinda like an unexpected slap – I didn’t know how to react. And then it actually did hit me – I was staring at my new cover! I felt the flush in my face and then it all made sense. I was smiling.

It took a while for it to fully sink in, but what I saw (which is ever-so slightly different from what you will see soon) impressed me. I discussed it with Janet and we talked about a few things that might enhance what was already there. I have passed them along to Glendon and I suspect there will be another version soon. Please visit his website and see what he has to offer. I’m hoping my cover will be in his gallery in the future.

Anyway, it wasn’t all that bad and I’m very close to putting the final touches on Appetite for Revenge, the e edition!. Kudos to Smashwords.com for providing a dynamite style guide. This made it easy to make the necessary changes (although having to link 45 chapters to a table of contents was a bit time-consuming).