I'm still sleeping with my editor.

Billie M. Judy, Ace Editor

And she's a cutie!

She's also a terrific editor. 

When we were first married, she worked for a weekly newspaper printer, proofing and fine-tuning the ads for not just one, but five or six newspapers. And she was really, really good at it. 

She can look at a manuscript page and spot the extra or missing punctuation, or an extra space. Not me. I'm a fast reader, a "whole page" kind of guy. For me to see a typo, it has to be anchored to an elephant wearing a blinking neon arrow. Here. Here. Here.

The first full book she edited, way back then, included a forward by Jacqueline Onassis. Nice way to begin. And I've lost track of how many she's edited since then. 

Self-publishing is like doing your own dental work.

Most of us have had a bad first experience trying to read a self-published book. Somebody says, "take a look at my book, I wrote my heart out on it." So you take it home and try to dig in. 

Much of the time the book sucks. Often because it hasn't been edited properly. There isn't a book out there that doesn't need an editor.  Skipping the editing is not a good way to save money. When a writer looks at a page, he or she sees what was intended ... not what ended up on the page. 

"Thank you so much for Father Hardy!! I'm in love." 

This note came to me out of the blue on Facebook, this week. I've been publishing my own work for about four years, am about to publish my sixth novel, and notes like these are among the big rewards. 

Unlike Harper Collins and other big-five publishers, I don't have an assigned book publicist, don't have the guaranteed book-store tour, professional press-releases, a brace of cover artists ... I have myself and Billie. 

I feel lucky. 

I also have you. People who take a chance on a self-published book, and then maybe do a review, tell a friend, or tell a librarian or a teacher. From trusted pre-readers, to people who help me create book covers, to people I don't even know, who spread the word. Thanks for that!

Curious? This will take you directly to Amazon where you can read thirty pages of any of my books for free. : JTS Book Link