As a former ESL teacher, I know my grammar pretty well, and have done enough proofreading that I don't want to pay someone else to do it. I also want to be 100% indie, so I've decided that as hard as it is to proofread my own book, I'll do it several times if I have to, and that's what I'm doing.

I've been horrified to find typos in my most recent book, which I thought I had proofread pretty thoroughly. It leads me to wonder if perhaps I coomined the wrong files when I put it together.

But my attitude has changed considerably on typos. As a matter of pride, I used to hate it whan anything of mine that was published had even a typo in it. I'd change it and republish as soon as I possibly could. But AI has changed the way I look at it.

If AI would never allow a typo, then a typo is the mark that a human wrote it. But if you think about it, even typos that are corrected in later editions are marks that a human wrote it. That's my proof. If you think AI did my book because it has good grammar and no typos, you're wrong and I can prove it.

Also, I'm well aware that the vast majority of people just fly over them as they are reading. You tend to correct things and make sense of them naturally. Now bad grammar, especially repeated bad grammar (clearly not a typo) still irritates me. But that's not what we're talking about here.

In this age of AI, I fly my typos proudly. I will correct most if not all of them, just out of pride. But if there are a few in there, I'm not going to worry about it anymore.

Beasts of Ayutthaya

Beasts of Ayutthaya

Three retellings of Beauty and the Beast

On Amazon:
$10.59 in Paperback
$2.99 on Kindle
free on kindle unlimited

A beautiful young woman falls in love with a beast - what could possibly go wrong? These three tales explore that question, in the light of Disney's classic animation and the original 1740 tale, along with a few other variations. It seems it's more common than you think. Beasts can be charming, handsome in their own way, intelligent, loyal, fiercely protective....yet they can kill without hesitation or guilt. They may of course turn into a prince - but is that so great? Visit 18th century Siam (Thailand) for these variations. Be Our Guest, White Elephant, and The Halberd give you some idea of the importance of elephants and tigers in ancient Thai culture, and tell tales that are worth comparing to the tales we know.

So I published a book the other night and I'm still traumatized by the experience. Writing about it will help me process it. Actually it seemed to come out ok and I will show you now, first time in public, before I start publicizing it seriously.

Beasts of Ayutthaya: Three retellings of Beauty and the Beast

It's real; it's good; it's 300 pages depending on how you count. Some of this is confusing to me. Again, maybe writing about it will help.

The book is basically a combination of three books that have already been published: Be Our Guest, White Elephant, and The Halberd. Each of the three stands alone ok but together they work better. I was basically taking this large file and trying to put it in a 5.8 X 8.5 format which seemed to be more common in the Global Beasts series.

You may be questioning my assumptions already, and I am too. How many are 5.8 X. 8.5 (as opposed to 6 X 9, which I'm more used to)? Do others face these struggles? I downloaded a 5.8 X 8.5 template and put my book into it. I prepared two covers (kindle and paperback) and uploaded the kindle version fairly easily, no problem. Doing the paperback it rejected my document, words outside their little margin. I could see that the header that appears on the top of every page was indeed over their margin, and the page number was right on that margin. So I eliminated the header, but could not seem to eliminate the page numbers.

I tried shrinking the margins of the original document. Finally I figured out how to move the page numbers up toward the document so they'd be inside that margin. I had a simple t of c which listed only the three parts. At first I had just taken page no's out of there so that t of c was useless. Changing margins I was making my little production very thick. Finally it worked and this morning I restored the t of c and made it as good as I could. Now I'm totally tired and I'm losing one key on my little computer here so I'll sign off. - perhaps to restart on a computer that is clunkier, however at least has its keys. aaach!!

Tall Corn State

Tall Corn State
A personal novel with actualist poets, jumping trains, and unrequited love
KINDLE SPECIAL - 99c through the month of May
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XQ9612R