Oh POO! Writing, editing & self-publishing my Kingdom of Nerada series
This morning reflection on my publishing experience flooded in. You know what it’s like when Ingram Spark prints a beautiful copy, and you read a perfect chapter you have written and suddenly there it is, a glaring error, like POO! popped into the middle of a sentence, a mighty shock! In late 2024 I proudly walked around with this copy of my novel, as then unreleased, and hypothesised about how and why this unusual show-stopping-ugly-and-profoundly-disturbing-anomaly had popped into my otherwise perfect prose and capable, conscientious and highly skilled editing. POO symbolises the mighty trap for the unwary and inexperienced self-publisher. In the end I withheld the release for a couple of months while I did a complete restructure and the second novel emerged, so I developed the content, which is now quite beautiful. I hypothesised about Oh POO! and how and why it represents a trap for the unwary perfectionist self-publisher.
Initially, like everyone, we tend to blame external forces for our own errors. So, how and why did this offensive word, not actually POO, pop into my perfect prose? I figured it was cursor related, so I thought my cursor one place and it was another. While I typed in the replace box, I actually typed on my otherwise perfect prose document.
Self-publishing is a trap for the unwary. We believe writing to be relevant to our skill set. I have about eight years training, including education, plus a Trinity Elocution background from the age of four, so I expect to be super capable, but inexperience as publishers may lead us to trip ourselves up because of our inexperience with technology. The good news is, by delaying the release of my Kingdom of Nerada Book 1 Isabella Airyfairyabelous & the Sleepy Dragon until April 2025, I enabled myself to structurally edit the original novel, so it moves superlatively from sequence to sequence, chapter to chapter. In addition, up popped the Faery Enchantment in all its inimitable glory, which I consequently developed and linked to my original fantasy novella draft Gablestone, which I worked on when I studied NMIT Professional Writing & Editing.
That’s not all, Kingdom of Nerada has just received beautiful praise from several admirable sources including The Reading Bud’s Heena, who has composed a fine four-star review. The question is why is the database misrepresenting the date of release. Now, this discussion is the tip of the iceberg for self-publishers. There is plenty more to discover. Oh POO! I do hope my publishing journey gets better!
Photo: Shutterstock picture library leased to Marie Lukic
Marie
I am Marie Lukic, the owner of the website. I am a writer, a teacher and research family history.
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