Where have I been?
I have been pretty busy all year, so far. I haven’t gotten as far with The Watching as I’d hoped, but I’ve been making progress on all fronts.
So what have I been up to? First the fun stuff.
Cruisin’ for a Boozin’.
I don’t get many vacations, so when the dear wife suggested a break to mark my passing an age milestone, I thought that sounded great. A few days at sea going to the Bahamas and back on the Carnival Sunshine. I’m a shareholder (very small-time) so it was also an opportunity to see if my money was well invested.
Catching Up On Projects.
I’ve also been replacing our back porch ceiling and fans. The ceiling was cheap vinyl and for some reason the ceiling fans were gimballed, so when a strong wind whipped around the back porch it smashed one of the fans into the ceiling, considerably damaging both.
At any rate, the new ceiling is tougher and doesn’t rattle in the breeze, and the new ceiling fans aren’t gimballed and look a lot nicer.
I also took the time to fit some speakers, a Bluetooth receiver amplifier and a Wi-Fi router in the attic, giving the back porch more possibilities.
Have I done anything else? Yes, but boring boring boring.
An Update on The Watching.
I recently completed my penultimate revision effort, going back through it and responding to all the notes that I’d made. Notes that a Beta reader might have given me, if I’d ever managed to get one.
The book now stands at just over 90,000 words, and I plan on one final comb-through, editing as I go this time.
I also have other plans regarding the book:
I’m seriously considering skipping getting an editor.
Why Skip An Editor?
Firstly, my success rate at getting a Beta reader has been abysmal.
I’ve asked on the blog, I’ve asked on FaceBook, I’ve asked at Critique Match, and I’ve asked family. From all that, I got four offers to read with feedback, the dear wife having been my Alpha reader. I got feedback from only one reader – my daughter.
Secondly, editors don’t come cheap. If we take 3c/word as a fair estimate and set 91,000 words as the size, we get $2,730 for an editor. I don’t have that kind of cash.
Thirdly… The first two points aren’t mutually exclusive. Let’s look at a case study with a sample of 1, which is small, but illustrative:
The cover illustration.
My information was that Fiverr would be a good place to get a decent cover made. The rates suggested on the artists work page, however, don’t necessarily indicate the end cost, so let’s bear that in mind.
I have a fairly clear idea of what I want on the cover. In fact, I made a mock-up of it and provided it to three artists. I got two offers. One about $190 and the other for $70 something. I don’t remember exactly, but the out-the-door cost was a sneeze over $80.
It should have been an easy enough job. All that I figured would be required is to have two windows open on a computer. One showed the mockup, the other the artist’s work, taking the basic idea and making it look like it was created rather than thrown together.
I made the mistake of accepting the offer right before leaving for the cruise, where I had no internet. I did, however, notify the artist that I would not be getting reliable internet until I returned the following Sunday.
The cover work was issued on the Thursday while I was still at sea, and since I hadn’t responded in time on the Saturday, Fiverr closed the job and the artist got paid before I’d even got to look at the cover.
A lot, if not all, of the required elements were wrong. One was totally absent and one was the wrong color entirely.
So I won’t be going down that road.
TL/DR
It seems very difficult to get people to do the job I want done, and while perhaps being $80 down is a survivable financial lesson in being even more cynical, paying almost $3,000 to be disappointed is beyond my ability to tolerate.
I’ll just have to pay extremely close attention during this next – final – edit cycle.
Meanwhile, I’ve made what I think is a fairly passable attempt at a cover, and I’ll be using that.
What’s next?
I still have a lot of work to do standing my farm up and finishing things about the house, but I have a plan to squeeze in some time each day to work on the final revision. We’ll see how that plan survives an encounter with the real world.
In the meantime, I’d like to say I’ll be posting more often, but that’s probably not going to happen.
I’m old enough and ugly enough, however, to know that not hearing from me isn’t going to spoil a single day for anyone, and on that note:
Stay safe and have a wonderful week.
Categories: Beta Readers, My Life, The Old Man, Work Update
Andrew Wellington 
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