The process sounds simple. One, cancel the iUniverse contract for Silent Runners to remove it from the catalog. Two, put the manuscript into Word and give it a quick polish. Three, put it up on Amazon Kindle Select. 4) After ninety days, publish it through Lulu and Smashwords for the rest of the world.
I'm stuck on step two. Someday I will learn that a "quick polish" does not exist. I have now removed over 2000 words, and I suspect that another 1000 will leave before I'm finished.
I have found I have found misspelled words. I have found misused words, particularly which for that. It is an old and very frustrating problem of mine, knowing when to use which and when to that. Is which the limiting word, or that? My current rule is: if you can the word that, and there is no comma, do so. After all, a comma looks like a cliff and witches fly off of cliffs, so you need a comma to use which.
The largest bulk of missing words, however, are Tom Swiftys. "I've got to go," she said hurriedly. The adverb restates what is shown in the quotation, and is therefore redundant. Further, one doesn't need the attribute she said as it can be replaced with something I call an action tab -- an action which is linked to the quote. "I've got to go." She balanced the files in her arms.
You can properly use either an attribute or an action tab. However, I found that I was using both.
Nope, not a quick polish. Not at all.
