Book Babying It – Part Four, The New Proof

Whee!

Late last night, I received an email from Book Baby informing me that my proof was (finally) ready for inspection.

Of course, since I’m tucked into bed by 9 p.m., I was too tuckered out to investigate last night. So the first thing this morning, I opened up my account and downloaded Virtually Yours into my iBooks.

For some unexplained reason, the download went off flawlessly fast. Lightning quick! As some of you might recall, the first download took me a few days and much mental anguish and technical jerry-rigging to get the book into my iPad. I have no idea what I did this time to get it to upload so quickly. (I have no idea what I did last time, either.) I’m from the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and “if you can get it to work, don’t over analyze it” schools of thought, so I’m not even going there.

There were some minor glitchy problems with my first proof. The resultant formatting wasn’t as I envisioned. This story takes place online, with plenty of email, IMs, and blog posts. My email exchanges were off center. All scrunched up, it was difficult to read. The blog posts weren’t immediately recognizable as such. Plus I made the error of using spaces and tabs. (Note to writers: NEVER use spaces and tabs! Set up your document correctly before you type the first word!) And worse, my emoticons were running into the text.

Plus I noted spelling errors I thought I had changed (I was in between computers, my main  laptop nearly succumbing to the Blue Screen of Death before I bought another) and other typos that were glaringly painful to look at.

My re-worked manuscript had no tabs or unnecessary spaces. I cushioned my smiley faces with a space before and a space after. The phrases I wanted italicized were, and the ones that shouldn’t have been weren’t. I made certain that each block of text was separate and readable.

Enter now my returned proof, which looks pretty good. So far, my only complaint would be that there may be a little bit too much space in between text blocks. (I know. I am super picky.) I also inserted a disclaimer and questions for discussion, and that looks good as well.

*Deep cleansing breath*

I guess I could do one of two things. 1. Pick it apart some more and send it back to see if the spaces can be tightened up. (Crazy, I know.) or 2. Kiss my baby goodbye and send it off into the world.

Let me finish up my proofing, but you know which way I’m leaning.

🙂

So far, I’m up to page 200 of proof reading. There is one word on one page that bothers me thus far, and I’m not sure I want to change it. I’m not sure it’s worth it to change it. I’m not sure anyone will notice.

Any advice would be much appreciated.