I am ridiculously excited. The thing I’m buzzing about most is the new cover for my psychological thriller, Leverage.
A tiny part of me is grieving the old one. It was simple, basic and did what it said on the tin, a black background with a stylised blood slick. I had it for a long time and had grown attached to it. However, the new one is amazing. I adore it. I’ve added the first advert to my Amazon Ads Campaign and am waiting for the book sales to roll in. If I had time, I’d be looking at real estate in the Bahamas today. Amendment—minor deflation, it’s been live for a few hours and has had 3 sales—I remain hopeful. Maybe not the Bahamas. The shed at the bottom of the yard is very warm this time of year.
Next week I’m hoping to have the new cover for A Question of Sanity finalised and live. It had a new 5-star review today—a very good review, but the reader said they found errors. OCD overload, how many errors one, ten, a thousand? What kind of errors? Typos, formatting, continuity? I’m an editor by profession—there can not be any errors. This is an outrage. Who snuck errors into my book when I wasn’t looking? Anybody that knows me knows what this means. Peter, my go-to guy, will have his head in his hands and be saying, ‘Please, no. Not again.’
I am going to re-edit.
Remember when somebody put glass into jars of baby food, and they had to be recalled. And, the same happened when cars have failed safety checks. This is a parallel disaster of equal scale. I need to recall every copy ever sold—my book has at least one error of undisclosed magnitude. Mon Dieu. Seriously though, you only learn by having thick skin. I’ve been around the block enough to have come through the ever-so-sensitive phase of having my ugly literary children criticised. I appreciate every comment I receive, especially the ones pointing out improvements. It was a great and balanced review—still going to re-edit, though.
The edit on Lizards Leap is complete. It is a scientific fact. There are no errors. And to prove this theorem, I’m ready to put it out to the intense scrutiny of half a dozen beta readers. If anybody would like to volunteer and has an eye like a bloodhound’s nose—maybe not black, squidgy and wet, though, please get in touch, and I’ll gladly provide a copy. katherine@bestbookeditors.com 
Scratch your memory and forget that my own book has errors for the next section, please. Best Book Editors has three books in to edit next week. Our Barbara is back for a second pass. I know she’s been working hard on it and am looking forward to seeing the next phase. Then I have the lovely Jenna, she booked in her next novel last year. She hasn’t had the easiest year, but she’s kept bang on target and is running to date. That takes discipline during a smooth year. I care about every commission we take on, but I come to care about the clients, too, as we build a long-term relationship. I’m proud of what she’s achieved. This lady is one of my more accomplished authors, and she writes a story that’s a joy to work on. The third book is from Jake. This is the third book we’ve edited for him, and he’s another excellent writer. Jake’s going down the mainstream route and has chosen not to self publish. His previous two novels are with publishers, and we wish him every success. We’re in for an excellent end-of-month.
In other news, We’d like to welcome our latest freelancer aboard. Chris is very busy running his own design business but has kindly agreed to put some time aside to design our book covers. Chris is a fully qualified professional with his own business offering a printing service, web design, and graphic design. The single most difference between Chris and some of the cover designers offering their services on the likes of Fiverr and the writing groups is that he is a registered business owner. He is well respected throughout Cumbria and runs from premises in Windermere. Best Book Editors offer a top-quality cover that will upload the first time, every time at a reduced price. We have struck a great deal with Chris to pass on the saving to our clients. Keep an eye on the Book Cover Design page to see his portfolio with us grow. We’re going to market this service, along with our Book Formatting/Typesetting offer, over the next month. If you’d like to be the first to have your book cover created by Chris and showcased on the website, please use the cover link above to order.
Running Amazon ads can be complicated if you’re inexperienced. We are launching another new service this month. Best Book Editors will be selling packages of 1000 keywords relevant to your book and genre, with an easy-to-follow guide of how to run and monitor your ad campaigns. They will be going live on the website shortly, but you can order them now using the quote form for any other service on the site. Just mark the listing you chose as ‘Keywords’, and we’ll send you the relevant information.
This week, time allowing, I want to get some articles out. I’m running on a theme. The first is going to be highlighting what to look for in a book cover designer. We’ll look at some of the pitfalls and highlight the technicalities and formatting for producing full-wrap for paperback. The second article, while similar, will look at what you need when hiring somebody to format your book for publication. The third will be concerned with running your Amazon ads campaigns and how to make them successful. Today, I added one advert to my campaign for Leverage and sold three books in three hours—it’s not a Bahaman beach house, but it’s a start. I’ll monitor it for a few days and then tweak it for more substantial results. I’m no expert, which is good because it means that the guide I’ll be producing will be a dummy guide for beginners to get to grips with. My fourth article will be a clear step-by-step guide to setting up and monitoring your campaigns that I will send out with every Keyword order.
It’s my birthday today— or it was, it’s two in the morning here in blustery England. We had a new hall and stair carpet fitted, and I received perfume, a dress and a top from Hubby. His daughter and his gorgeous grandson came for dinner—though Grandson was the only one on boobie. I was given more perfume and a lovely gift set. Incidentally, I smell fantastic. Granddad asked me where the horse was—what horse? We ate pea and ham, spaghetti and pizza bread.
`Twas a good day.
