I have no follow up to PoP yet, but I am working on the third book in the April series “The Middle of Nowhere”
I also went back and reformatted all the Amazon files and they look much better.
Just finished “April” and “Down to Earth” ( 3 Days ). My only complaints are the same ones that was posted by Michael Maedo on Amazon. That and the next in the Series isn’t available yet. Same for “Paper or Plastic”. The rest of this is a canned email invite from Goodreads. I hope you join. http://www.goodreads.com/author/confirm/5787449.Mackey_Chandler
Hello,
I’m an avid reader of your books, and I am writing to invite you to join Goodreads.com, which is the largest community of book lovers online. Because you are a published author, you already have a profile on Goodreads:
If you join Goodreads, you can claim this author profile and make it your own!
Here are some of the ways you can use Goodreads:
- Connect with your readers and build a following of fans
- Participate in an online Q&A session with your readers
- Blog about anything and everything
- Publicize upcoming events, such as book signings and speaking engagements
- Share excerpts of any upcoming publications
- Post videos about your books or anything you choose
- And, of course, share your list of favorite books and recent reads with your fans!
Thanks for the invitation. I’ll go look at it today. I’ve started on the third ‘April’ book and have quite a few scenes written that will plug in as it moves along.
I got Family Law for free. Sometimes the books I get that way are substandard and I delete them quickly. Not so with your book. I love it! – reminds me so much of early science fiction that I read and loved as a child and young adult. I was sad to find that there was no sequel – please write one! I’ve just bought Paper or Plastic and will read that next. Kudos!
Just finished reading Down To Earth – good story, but please, for the love of your readers, get a copyeditor to look over the manuscript. Some scoundrel looted the tale and took off with about 75% of your commas and semicolons, and at least 20% of your closing quotation marks!
Very valid complaint I admit. My next April series book will be professionally copy edited. I live on Social Security disability. If I had not published these as they are I never would have gotten a foot in the door. Now that I have some sales I can pay for editing. I’m not sure if I’ll make enough to go back clean up the older books, but if I can afford to do so I will.
I am supposed to have the edited manuscript tonight. I have to check it and add material on the title page and on the end. So I can say with some confidence this week. I’ve been disappointed too many times to say tomorrow.
Just finished reading the new book now, and I’ve noticed a number of places where editing still seems lacking. It’s been a while since I read the other books, so I don’t have a good handle on how much the editor may have fixed. However, it seemed to have more errors than most other self published kindle titles that have had editing but less than those that have not had editing.
Given that, plus how long it took to get the editing done, you may want to consider going with a different editor for A Different Perspective, which I hope will be avaiable with less delay than The Middle of Nowhere.
As a point of reference, I have in the past provided free editing help for an author, providing feedback for several self published fiction books in exchange for getting to read them early. While doing that, I’ve found that it typically only took me a few hours over one or two days to do a reasonable job at this when all that was required was to flag the problems for the author to correct. In this case, a reasonable job means that the final book is likely at the same level or better editing wise as The Middle of Nowhere, but not as good as I would expect from a professional editor, particularly of a book published by a mainstream publisher. Of course, I believe that this author had several others helping him as well, so that likely contributed to the overall quality as several less qualified editors are likely to catch the same amount as one more qualified editor.
Thanks for the feedback. Is that an offer? I’ll add you as a beta reader if you wish. Unfortunately I found a few errors myself on a last minute review. A couple quotes not closed and question marks gone AWOL, and had come to much the same conclusion.
Mac, you may want to expand your description of the first two April books on Amazon. When I first read your current summary of April, I didn’t think much about it and in fact thought it was a book for YAs. I bought it because I was bored and had just read Paper Or Plastic? Decided I would give it a try @ $2.99. Of course, once I read it I was hooked. JMO.
Sorry for the delay in replying – I have to check back more often. JMO, but the descriptions are very sparse. There’s nothing in it about the technology that’s involved, the fact that there was quite literally a space-based war with the US, etc.
Now that’s an interesting thing to say. I write thinking mostly about the people and their interactions, the tech is sort of incidental. Indeed I have also had some people complain I go off into technical discussions too much. But it is integral to the story and you are right I have neglected it entirely in the descriptions. I believe I will revise that.
Yes, I tried Dragon NS but found it untrainable. There were words that no matter how many times I corrected the program it never learned to recognize them. The number of errors was too great.
Do you have chronic gout? If you are not currently being treated by a doctor for your gout, then the only relatively low-cost treatment I can think of for it is Chaga tea.
It is “A Different Perspective”. It is out to the copy editor and I have yet to put out the cover for it. It is a little soon to release it since the last. A couple months I’d say – summer.
Loved “Paper or Plastic” It took two days to read ( work got in the way) any chance book 2 out anytime soon? I’m about to start on “April” now.
I have no follow up to PoP yet, but I am working on the third book in the April series “The Middle of Nowhere”
I also went back and reformatted all the Amazon files and they look much better.
Just finished “April” and “Down to Earth” ( 3 Days ). My only complaints are the same ones that was posted by Michael Maedo on Amazon. That and the next in the Series isn’t available yet. Same for “Paper or Plastic”. The rest of this is a canned email invite from Goodreads. I hope you join.
http://www.goodreads.com/author/confirm/5787449.Mackey_Chandler
Hello,
I’m an avid reader of your books, and I am writing to invite you to join Goodreads.com, which is the largest community of book lovers online. Because you are a published author, you already have a profile on Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5787449.Mackey_Chandler
If you join Goodreads, you can claim this author profile and make it your own!
Here are some of the ways you can use Goodreads:
- Connect with your readers and build a following of fans
- Participate in an online Q&A session with your readers
- Blog about anything and everything
- Publicize upcoming events, such as book signings and speaking engagements
- Share excerpts of any upcoming publications
- Post videos about your books or anything you choose
- And, of course, share your list of favorite books and recent reads with your fans!
To become a Goodreads Author, follow this link:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/confirm/5787449.Mackey_Chandler
Sincerely,
Thanks for the invitation. I’ll go look at it today. I’ve started on the third ‘April’ book and have quite a few scenes written that will plug in as it moves along.
Author profile and missing books are up on GoodReads.
I got Family Law for free. Sometimes the books I get that way are substandard and I delete them quickly. Not so with your book. I love it! – reminds me so much of early science fiction that I read and loved as a child and young adult. I was sad to find that there was no sequel – please write one! I’ve just bought Paper or Plastic and will read that next. Kudos!
I’m very glad to hear people like it. I will eventually get to a sequel but I’m working on the April series right now.
I’m anxiously awaiting the release of “The Middle of Nowhere”. Do you have any idea when it will be ready for release? Thanks!
By the end of the year I hope.
Just finished reading Down To Earth – good story, but please, for the love of your readers, get a copyeditor to look over the manuscript. Some scoundrel looted the tale and took off with about 75% of your commas and semicolons, and at least 20% of your closing quotation marks!
Very valid complaint I admit. My next April series book will be professionally copy edited. I live on Social Security disability. If I had not published these as they are I never would have gotten a foot in the door. Now that I have some sales I can pay for editing. I’m not sure if I’ll make enough to go back clean up the older books, but if I can afford to do so I will.
If u have an ARC copy of the next April book. Do not care about typos or price.
Thank you, but the copy edited $2.99 version will be up in Dec. Nice to know you like my stuff that much though.
Any update on when in Dec this will be available?
Nope, copy editing still being done. I know the guy had the flu and was pretty useless for a week. I still expect it this month.
Is the next April book still due end of Dec?
Yes or my copy editor will die screaming like a little girl and I’ll have to write from prison.
I’m going to post a short to hold you over.
Any new info on the release yet.
Nope. Just got through e-mailing the editor not ten minutes ago…
Any updates on the release date?
I am supposed to have the edited manuscript tonight. I have to check it and add material on the title page and on the end. So I can say with some confidence this week. I’ve been disappointed too many times to say tomorrow.
Just finished reading the new book now, and I’ve noticed a number of places where editing still seems lacking. It’s been a while since I read the other books, so I don’t have a good handle on how much the editor may have fixed. However, it seemed to have more errors than most other self published kindle titles that have had editing but less than those that have not had editing.
Given that, plus how long it took to get the editing done, you may want to consider going with a different editor for A Different Perspective, which I hope will be avaiable with less delay than The Middle of Nowhere.
As a point of reference, I have in the past provided free editing help for an author, providing feedback for several self published fiction books in exchange for getting to read them early. While doing that, I’ve found that it typically only took me a few hours over one or two days to do a reasonable job at this when all that was required was to flag the problems for the author to correct. In this case, a reasonable job means that the final book is likely at the same level or better editing wise as The Middle of Nowhere, but not as good as I would expect from a professional editor, particularly of a book published by a mainstream publisher. Of course, I believe that this author had several others helping him as well, so that likely contributed to the overall quality as several less qualified editors are likely to catch the same amount as one more qualified editor.
Thanks for the feedback. Is that an offer? I’ll add you as a beta reader if you wish. Unfortunately I found a few errors myself on a last minute review. A couple quotes not closed and question marks gone AWOL, and had come to much the same conclusion.
Yes, that is an offer. I’d like to be added as a beta reader.
The things that I noticed were mostly wrong words. (wrong tenses, missing words, etc)
Mac, I have never written to an author. Until now. I just read A Mission to Earth. It blew me away. I think it was brilliant. Keep it up.
Mac, you may want to expand your description of the first two April books on Amazon. When I first read your current summary of April, I didn’t think much about it and in fact thought it was a book for YAs. I bought it because I was bored and had just read Paper Or Plastic? Decided I would give it a try @ $2.99. Of course, once I read it I was hooked. JMO.
Some people do regard them as YA since they don’t have graphic sex. I’m curious what you would do different in the descriptions?
Sorry for the delay in replying – I have to check back more often. JMO, but the descriptions are very sparse. There’s nothing in it about the technology that’s involved, the fact that there was quite literally a space-based war with the US, etc.
Now that’s an interesting thing to say. I write thinking mostly about the people and their interactions, the tech is sort of incidental. Indeed I have also had some people complain I go off into technical discussions too much. But it is integral to the story and you are right I have neglected it entirely in the descriptions. I believe I will revise that.
Mac, have you tried dictation software like Dragon Naturally Speaking? It could allow you to dictate your novels to your PC with little typing.
Yes, I tried Dragon NS but found it untrainable. There were words that no matter how many times I corrected the program it never learned to recognize them. The number of errors was too great.
Do you have chronic gout? If you are not currently being treated by a doctor for your gout, then the only relatively low-cost treatment I can think of for it is Chaga tea.
I had a sudden attack from no previous trouble. A week of no red meat and Allopurinol has done wonders. But I’ll check out the tea.
Well, you know what they say about red meat …
Good to hear you are better.
Hi Mac,
Read five of your books in the last seven days… so when is the next April book being published?
I would be glad to serve as a beta reader. I have done a fair bit of proofreading and would enjoy getting an early look at your new manuscripts.
Best,
Jim Davis
It is “A Different Perspective”. It is out to the copy editor and I have yet to put out the cover for it. It is a little soon to release it since the last. A couple months I’d say – summer.