You’d think that being an author kinda ends when you turn the book into the publisher. Not so! Now comes the “visualization” part. Figuring out how to portray your vision on the page, in a manner that’s not going to break the bank (e.g., use lots of fancy colors, ‘screens’ and fonts). Everything from margins, lines, fonts, … ack!
It’s tough, too, to get a mock-up from the publisher and then see mistakes that weren’t caught. Maybe it’s seeing it in more “book-like-form” that does it; just a second ago, I re-read one section and realized that my “math” was off by a factor of 10! (I said in the book divided your age by 10 and multiply by your income, and then used the example of someone who is 40 and making $50,000. My sentence blithely says: “so that’s 4/10 x $50,000 or $20,000.” Um, no. It’s 40/10…and $200,000. Aw, only 10x more…(laugh). Also have been seeing a lot of sentences that, for example, start with “you” (as if I’m addressing the reader) and end with “she” (as if I’m addressing a third party). My publisher can’t be happy that I keep sending little “oh, just one more thing” love notes to her!
Thursday, a friend of my mother’s (my mother is the head of a Public Relations company), who used to book folks on Oprah, is giving a seminar I’m going to attend via telephone. I’m going to get on Oprah, yet! I’m ready to take lots and lots of notes! LAUGH!!!