One thing that I’ve quickly come to realise about blogging is that essentially one is writing to and for ones self. Firstly, I can’t even find my blog if I copy and paste the http address into Google  so what chance would anyone else have of stumbling across me? Maybe I’m just doing something wrong. Maybe I’ve clicked a button in settings that says ‘Keep Blog Private’. Hang on, I’d better just check that. No, I haven’t. Secondly, it seems that the world and his wife are so busy blogging that no one has any time to spare to comment on other people’s blogs. Can anyone else smell sour grapes?

But it doesn’t matter anyway because this blog was not conceived as something that people were going to read or subscribe to in their legions with a view to keeping up with my occasional witterings about my mundane existence or my dull views of anything.  From the outset it has been intended to be a weblink that people who might download one of my books from Amazon Kindle (when they are finally uploaded) could follow to see what’s planned or what they’ve missed or what they can look forward to or what they will know to avoid in future. (Cunningly, I’m going to include my blog web address in the uploaded Kindle book. I notice another self-publisher did this. Mind you, there’s not much point if the web address doesn’t lead anywhere. I will have to sort that out.) And, of course, it’s going to serve as a record of my self-publishing venture. My self-publishing diary. Depending on how that goes I might have some useful stuff to include for any others who decide to do what I’m going to but don’t know where to start (and stumble across my blog when they type in search terms like ‘failed self-publishing experiment’ or perhaps ‘how to make a million pounds from self-publishing your set of three crime novels’). To that end I’m including in the Blogroll any links that I think might prove useful or interesting.

Today I made a start on my final, final proof read of my first title, Rope Enough.  Actually, that’s not strictly true. I started by reading the first three chapters yesterday, but I was tired and feared that I hadn’t been concentrating and might have missed something. So today I shut myself away for a while and started again, but with a difference. It’s a difference that is instantly working and paying dividends for me. I’m reading the book out loud to myself. It’s not a proof reading technique that I read about; it’s just a different approach for reading a book that I’ve read at least five times already. And, like I said, it’s paying dividends.

Reading aloud gives another dimension to the reception of the text. Because I’m hearing it, I’m hearing things that don’t flow, words that could be bettered, things that aren’t necessary. I’m also enjoying hearing the story. I’m making alterations that I wouldn’t have thought to make if I hadn’t heard the text and I think that they are all improvements. That’s seems obvious, doesn’t it? I mean as an aspiring Kindle millionaire I’m hardly likely to deliberately make the book worse am I? But I hope that you know what I mean? I do, actually. And it needed saying. (That was me blogging to and for myself and answering me.) Of course, now that I’ve started I’ll have to continue reading aloud, which could get a bit awkward on the bus in the mornings. Still, as I always say, fuck everyone else.

Yesterday I made a couple of extra pages for my blog. They were unrelated pages about the separate series of books that I’m writing. I realise that now that I’ve done this I have an opportunity to give a brief synopsis of each of the titles included in each series. That will fit in with my self-promotion to me about my books. I can’t wait to write and then read them (probably aloud for effect).