Word Perfection

No one is perfect.  Well, except Nadia Comaneci, and Torvill and Dean.

That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't strive for perfection.

I take a great deal of pride in my grammar, spelling, and proofreading skills.  I know that mine are above average, but I also know that the results of refining those skills are attainable by nearly every writer who dreams of uploading a manuscript to Amazon. 


I finished the actual writing of The Looking-Glass Portrait on 11 July 2016.  Because it was written using Word Perfect, I had to convert the document to Microsoft Word before I could upload it.  There are certain conventions of the two softwares that are not 100% compatible, so I had to go through the entire manuscript and make manual corrections to things like em and en dashes, tabs and ellipses, double breaks and so on. This also gave me the opportunity to look in both versions for marked spelling errors and fix them. 

Spell check tools are wonderful.  They won't catch everything, but they catch a lot.  Anyone who doesn't take advantage of them is just plain foolish.  I've seen too many author-published works on Amazon that have clearly never been run through even the most rudimentary spell-checking program.  This is unforgivable.

After putting my MSWord document through the conversion to HTML and then to mobi, I uploaded it to Kindle Direct Publishing on 18 July.  Yes, just one week.  No one else had read it.  No one else had proofread it.  No one else had edited it.  I knew I was taking a huge risk that I might have missed something major, but I was willing to take that risk and trust at least to my own proofreading skills.

The uploading process contains its own spell check application.  I used it, too, because you never know what the other programs might have missed.  And they had in fact missed one typo that I was able to fix before uploading.  I hit the "publish" button.

By Word Perfect's count, the book is something over 138,000 words long.  After a few readers got back to me, we had identified a grand total of three -- three -- errors that escaped my eagle eyes:  a missing space between two words, a wrong word, and a missing word.  All were easily fixed so the corrected document can be uploaded to Amazon.

Am I bragging?  Yes, I am!  But I'm also saying that this can be done by anyone who is willing to learn the skills or learn to rely on others who have the skills.  Your readers should be able to sit down with your book and read it, not correct it.  Are three errors acceptable?  Well, not by me!  Would I throw a book against a wall for three errors in 400 pages?  No, of course not.  But I wouldn't read past the first page if I found three errors on it.

It's not enough to put your heart and soul, your blood, sweat, and tears into you book.  You have to put your skill into it, too.  Language is the absolutely essential tool you have with which to build your literary world, and if you don't learn to use it with consummate skill, you probably won't be able to tell a story people will be willing to pay good money for.

I don't have to read a single word, and neither do you

You're probably thinking this post is going to be a defense of my oft-reviled tendency to rate or review books based on a reading of a single page or less.  Well, it's not.

Not exactly.

This is a simple challenge to all you self-publishing novelists whose digital sales are languishing and who have resorted to giving them away for free in attempt to boost sales without achieving the desired result.

Understand that I'm not addressing this to the writers whose books are selling to their satisfaction.  Nor am I addressing this to all writers who list their books for free.  No, I'm only addressing those who are dissatisfied with their sales and have chosen to give their books away as free samples but still haven't seen a significant rise in sales, whether of the same titles when not free, or other titles.  (Anyone else can try it, too, of course, but I'm specifically addressing that particular group.)

Part one of the challenge:  Take a look at any page of the digital text of your book.  First page, last page, third page of Chapter Twelve, it doesn't matter.  Bring it up on your Kindle or Kindle for PC or iPhone or any of the Kindle Direct Publishing emulators.  Not a PDF on your computer.  Not your original .doc file.  You need to be looking at the version that customers are going to be buying for their Kindles, iPads, smart phones, and so on.

Does your book have distinct paragraphs?  That means, is the beginning of each new paragraph clearly defined?  Yes, or no.  No other answer is possible.  Yes, the beginning is clearly defined, or no, it isn't.

Does it have block paragraphs?  That means, is the first line of each paragraph even with the left margin, and then has a blank line to separate it from the next paragraph?  Yes, or no.

Does it have indented block paragraphs?  That means, is the first line of each paragraph indented from the left margin and there is also a blank line to separate each paragraph from the next?  Yes, or no.

Does it have indented paragraphs?  That means, is the first line of each paragraph indented from the left margin and there is no extra line or space between one paragraph and the next?  Yes, or no.

You will have one Yes answer, and three No answers.  If you have four No answers, see me after class.  If you have more than one Yes answers, go back and review your answers.  If you can't figure out how to come up with one Yes and three No answers, see me after class.

Now, the second part of the challenge.  Look at random pages of several digital editions of books currently published by traditional print publishers.  If you can't afford to buy them, at least download some samples.  Go through the same four questions, and come up with the same single Yes answer.

Now, third part of the challenge.  Look at random pages of several digital editions of books currently published by successful self-publishing authors.  The easy way is to start with the front page of that listing on Amazon and just take the "Look Inside" preview.  By now you should be reasonably familiar with the four paragraphing style and be able to recognize very quickly which style is used in each book you examine.

If we number the four styles  -- none, block, block with indent, indent -- one through four, you should know what style yours is.  You should also have recognized that most, if not all, of the books you examined in parts two and three of the challenge use only the number four style: indented paragraphs without extra space between them.

Therefore, if you want to hope to compete with the established authors, with the authors who are selling their novels, you might to at least make your book look like theirs.  Nothing says, shouts, and screams SELF-PUBLISHING AUTHOR like no paragraphs, block paragraphs, and indented block paragraphs.  Figure out how to get your formatting to look professional.

(This challenge would also give you an opportunity to look at font styles and font sizes, if you're so inclined.)

Why is the type of paragraph such a big deal?  While it may not look to you like it should matter, it really does.

I'm going to assume you recognize the need for paragraphs on principle.  So that leaves out style number one.

While styles two and three clearly identify the separation of paragraphs, they also stop the reader's eyes from flowing to the next word/thought/action.  If you want your reader to keep reading, the very last thing you want her to do is . . . stop reading.  Not even for the tiny fraction of a second it takes her eyes to see that blank space, recognize it as just space, and then go on to the next line of text.  You want her to keep reading without a break, or at least until there's a break in the action, a change of scene, or whatever.  You'll indicate those with either a double break (the aforementioned blank line with or without a squiggly little design for emphasis) or a new chapter.

Block paragraphs work well for non-fiction if the author is presenting distinct information and wants the reader to take a tiny pause to think about what she's just read.  But fiction, when the author should want the reader to get into and stay in the story, any pause is just an opportunity for the reader to remember she has something else to do.  While you as the writer may allow her a convenient bathroom break between chapters, you don't want to be giving her those breaks every single paragraph.

More than one writer has excused the block paragraph format on the basis that it's easier on the reader's eyes.  While that's kind of the author to be so solicitous, it still means that the reader is given more and more and more chances to walk away, more and more chances not to be caught up in the story.  If you're so worried about the reader's eyes, make sure you don't use a tiny font, but don't make her blink and reread to maintain the flow of your narrative.

It's true, also, that in the old days of paper and ink books, extra lines meant extra paper, too, and we don't need to be that concerned about conserving paper when we're talking about digital books.  No, the only issue here is maintaining the reader's attention on the text.

Proper formatting of your paragraphs won't guarantee that you'll start selling 100 copies a week.  Proper formatting of paragraphs won't make up for poor grammar, ginormous plot holes, and TSTL characters.  But proper formatting of paragraphs may avoid some of the automatic turn-offs that come from readers who instantly recognize amateur presentation when they see it, before they've read a single word.

What have they done to my words? The Amazon formatting fraud continues

What follows is the text of my email to Amazon customer service regarding the Kindle content I downloaded last night.  I will post the relevant screen shots later today.


The Kindle content is "Stone of the Goddess" by Grizel Standilands.  I looked at the Look Inside sample, and it appeared fine.  The sample download, however, is formatted differently than the Look Inside feature.  It is in a different font and has no paragraph indents.  It is not easily readable.
I would like to buy this book, but I'm tired of getting Kindle content that looks good on the Look Inside feature and then turns out to be junk when I try to read it on my Kindle for PC.

I have deregistered, uninstalled, and reinstalled the Kindle for PC application literally dozens of times since these problems first appeared in July 2012.  Not a single one of the problems has been solved. 

Angels at Midnight by Norma Beishir
Danger at Mellin Cove by Rena George
Embrace the Wild Dawn by S.K. McClafferty
among others.

Amazon has taken hours and hours of my time in online chat and promise resolution, but nothing has been done.  I have been promised responses in three days, five days, a week, but I never get anything.  The people I chat with pay little attention to what I'm telling them.  For instance, the last time I got into an online chat, it lasted three hours, even though the question I asked at 20 minutes into the conversation could have been answered then, if the person had only been paying attention.

I have sent screen shots of sample pages showing what happens.  I have been told over and over and over that there is a team of specialists working on the problem and that it is an Amazon software problem.  I began reporting this in July 2012 and I have logs of all the chats to show that.
I know that it is perfectly possible for Kindle content to be formatted just fine to show correctly on the Kindle for PC app, because I read that content all the time.  If indeed the problem is in the software, as I have repeatedly been told by Amazon representatives that it is, then Amazon needs to fix it.  If, on the other hand, the problem is with the authors' formatting of the document that's uploaded to the Kindle platform, then that needs to be determined so the authors can fix their product.

I have the Kindle for PC app on two computers, an HP laptop operating Windows Vista and a Lenovo desktop using Windows 7.  I get exactly the same results on both of them when I look at the affected content.

The Amazon representatives have granted me some Kindle credit in compensation for my frustration and the time I've spent online with them.  I'm tired of giving up my time to this.  There is absolutely no reason why these books don't display properly on my devices.  And I am not going to go out and spend money for a Kindle device that I don't want and don't need and don't have the time to use, because I no longer have faith that these products would display correctly even on the Amazon hardware.

I am also a Kindle Direct Publishing author.  I have no way of knowing if Amazon has delivered my product in readable or unreadable condition to readers.  I have no way of knowing -- other than trusting the "preview" feature -- what my product looks like on any other device.  All I do know is that Amazon has been cheating authors out of sales by not addressing this issue for six months.

This email will be posted on my blog. 

Another update: Is Amazon messing with your words?

I am going to publish this in an incomplete form because I want to get this information out as soon as I can.  The basics are here now, and I will be providing the balance over the next day or so.  Unfortunately, I have to devote some time to my day job.



At the moment, Thursday evening, 12 July 2012, I'm so angry I can scarcely type.  And considering my day job consists of transcribing recorded interviews and I'm several hours behind on today's work, I'd better get my fingers back under control.

I just spent an hour and a half "chatting" with "Shiela" at Amazon.  She may be a real person, or she may be a cleverly programmed bit of software designed to answer customer questions.  I don't know for sure.  But here's what happened.

This morning, while I was at my favorite coffee shop, I downloaded the free Kindle edition of Norma Beishir's Angels at Midnight.  I already have a print copy of the 1989 edition, but I'm trying to clean out some of my paper books and this looked like a way to eliminate one more.  After downloading, I popped open the Kindle for PC app and sat back to read for a while.

Unfortunately, I couldn't read it.  The formatting was totally messed up.  I went back and checked the "Look Inside" preview on the book's listing to see if I had missed something, because what I was looking at on my Kindle for PC was totally unlike what I'd seen in the "Look Inside" feature.

Here's what I saw when I looked at the preview:

Standard Times Roman font, indented paragraphs, just like one would see in a "real" book.  Since Norma Beishir is a long-time publishing professional, this was nothing less than I expected.

What showed up on my Kindle was something entirely different!  Arial font, double spaced indented paragraphs, it was horrible! 

So I reported the formatting problem to Amazon via the book's page, and not too long after that I got an emailed reply from Amazon with directions on how to fix it:  Remove and redownload the book, and if that didn't work, make sure I had the current Kindle for PC installed on my computer.

By the time I got that reply, I was at home on the main computer and couldn't access the laptop where my Kindle app resides, so it wasn't until this evening that I got around to trying that fix.  Ultimately, it didn't work -- the Kindle version was still horrible.   I first did the remove and redownload of the book.  Then I installed the latest update to the Kindle for PC app.  Still no change.  I deleted the book and downloaded it again.  No change.

And so I got on an Amazon chat with a technician to fix it.

Guess what.  It can't be fixed.  Period.

The first solution "Shiela" offered me was to de-register and re-register my Kindle for PC.  That would involve removing and re-downloading all 626 books I've already downloaded.  Since some of those books are no longer available at Amazon and I didn't want to lose them,  this was not a preferred option.

As it turned out, it wouldn't have worked anyway.

When I told "Shiela" I wasn't willing to do that just to fix a formatting glitch on one book out of 626, she went to find another solution.

The second option involved her checking to see if the file had been properly formatted.

After putting me on hold for several minutes, she came back and told me she had checked the document as Beishir intended it, and that's what I was seeing.  In other words, best-selling author Norma Beishir is uploading documents to the Kindle Direct Publishing platform that don't look any better than what the most rank amateur SPA does when she/he uploads a badly written short story.

Somehow or other, I just didn't trust this answer.

I then asked why the "Look Inside" preview was fine, if the actual document wasn't?  Again, I was on cyber hold for a long time, and finally the answer came out:  ALL BOOKS are converted to Times Roman font for the "Look Inside" preview, regardless what they look like in actuality.  When I pointed out that there was no such disclaimer, "Shiela" gave some rambling nonsense but eventually agreed.  She said someone in another department would be informed.  And that was pretty much it.

Now, remember the suggestion that I de-register my Kindle app and re-register it?  Well, that proved to be more than a little bit problematic as well.

The original email from Amazon after I reported the problem said to delete the book and redownload it.  I tried that, and it didn't work.

The second part of that email said to make sure I had the most current Kindle for PC version.  The email contained a link to the Amazon page to do that.  I tried that, went back to the new version of Angels at Midnight but the problem persisted.  The font was still Arial and the paragraphs were still double-spaced.

I then tried deleting and redownloading the book again.  Still no improvement.

And I know I'm repeating myself here, but I want to make sure I'm not leaving anything out.

In the process of doing this, however, I discovered that somehow or other I had four versions of Kindle for PC on my computer and on my account.  I have no idea where they came from, but I did know that I had set mine for automatic updates.

"Shiela" informed me that updates require that the existing Kindle for PC app be uninstalled and the new one installed.  But I had personally never done that manually, and so I asked if it had been done automatically via the "Tools" button.  Her answer made no sense.

Shiela:For updates, we need to uninstall and re-install the application.8:52:22 PM

Me:That didn't answer my question: Do I have to de-register, re-register, and redownload 626 items when you do an automatic update?8:53:23 PM

Shiela:If we will re-register an application, we will be needing to re-download the books. There is actually no automatic updates for Kindle application for PC.8:55:02 PM

Me:Then why does it have a box to check for automatic updates? And how did I get all of these applications on one computer if I only installed it once?8:55:42 PM

Me:(Oh, by the way, the box for automatic updates cannot be not checked.)8:57:39 PM

I will post the entire conversation on another post so anyone who wants to can follow the entire conversation.  What eventually came out of it was this:

1.  All "Look Inside" previews of all books on Amazon are displayed in Times Roman font, regardless what the actual book will look like.  Neither readers nor authors get an accurate view this way.

2.  There is no disclaimer anywhere on Amazon that explains the "Look Inside" preview may in fact be significantly different from the actual product.

3.  The Kindle for PC application may or may not be automatically updated by Amazon.  The button on the program for opting out does not operate, leaving the user to believe that automatic updates are, well, automatic.  At least one service rep has stated, however, that Amazon does not automatically update the Kindle for PC application.

4.  I currently have four installed Kindle for PC applications on my computer.  Earlier this morning I had six, because I have managed to deregister two of them.  At no time when I downloaded the "newest" version last night did Amazon ask me if I wanted to replace the existing application.

If you've stayed with me through all this, you're probably wondering why this matters.  Well, check out the next blog post and you'll find out why.

Update: Those very expensive words

Well, well, well, well, well.  You learn something every day.

Or at least you ought to.

Over this past week-end, I began the process of publishing Firefly via Smashwords.  The exclusive listing for Amazon's Kindle expires on the 17th of this month, and I wanted to make sure I had sufficient time to check out the various formats offered by Smashwords.  After uploading what I believed was a "clean" copy of the file, I checked it using Smashwords' own applications.

This is a screen capture of a page from the Amazon Kindle version as it appeared via the Kindle for PC app, the copy that I downloaded when the book was offered free in April:

As I think you can see, the bottom line on this page reads: 

She was a good cook, she smiled proudly to

Now, here's the same passage as it reads in EPUB format via Smashwords' conversion:

Again, that line is down toward the bottom, and everything looks fine.

The third downloadable version I checked was the Smashwords Kindle/mobi version.

That stopped me cold.  Where did that screwed up font come from???

What I discovered on going through the entire file was that every time I used italics, the font changed from Times Roman to "ugly" courier for the entire paragraph, then switched back to Times Roman. 

I also discovered that the original Table of Contents I put into the Firefly file for Amazon, then revised for Smashwords but ultimately removed prior to uploading to Smashwords is still present.  This is, of course, a MicroSoft Word .doc file, which is what it has to be to upload to Smashwords.  And to Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing platform.  I will have to go back through the file to find out where this TOC formatting hides and remove it.  Even though it actually functions as a TOC, I don't want it there.

The next thing I checked was the "preview" from the Kindle Direct Publishing platform.

Again, the single word is italicized, but nothing else.  This was exactly what the file looked like when I uploaded it originally.   There was nothing to indicate that the whole thing would appear on some customers' devices in "ugly courier."  The screenshot of the Amazon Kindle version above is, in fact, from this same original upload and not the later "corrected" one.  That's why I had no idea it would download in another format.

Here's yet another version, the "Look Inside" sample from the Amazon offering:

Once again, just the one word is italicized, the way it should be.  And this is from the current, updated, supposedly "clean" version, yet it now has lost its right justification, which shows on all the others!

This is how the various digital publishing software packages transform the author's file, and this is why it is so very very important that the author check each and every version.  Sometimes there may be absolutely nothing you can do.  But if you can do something and you don't do it, it's no one's fault but your own when a reader complains.

At this point, I'm not sure if the complaints about the "ugly courier" font on the reviews for Firefly on Amazon were because of something I did or something inherent in the Amazon software or something in the hardware devices the readers were using.  I do know that I've done whatever I can think of to make sure the version readers download is as close to what I want them to see as I can get it, but obviously it's not as perfect as it needs to be.  So I'm going to keep working on it.