The thing they leave out of the tourist brochures . . .
Yes, Florida has
Disney World, The Space Center, Busch
Gardens, great beaches and mostly great
weather (those occasional pesky hurricanes are worth a demerit). But we’re also known as Florida, Land of Snow
Birds, Canada South, The Place Where New Yorkers Come to Die, and my personal
fave - God’s Waiting Room. Put another
way . . . we’ve got a lot of elderly people here.
I’m not anti-elderly - my hubby is, shall we say, eligible
for all the senior discounts out there.
And because I feel the need - he’s 20 years older than I am. Ironically, my hubby is a native New Yorker
so he was all for moving to Florida. I
love the beach, I love the weather (most of the time) and it’s a great place to
raise a kid.
It’s a horrible place to drive in. The worst time is November through the end of
April when our population swells with retirees driving their motor homes pulling
their cars behind them. Full-timers like
me joke about the Canadian license plate - Je Me Souviens is Canadian for “I’m
going to make right turn from the left lane without looking or using my turn
signal.” The actual translation is “I believe.”
Apropos since I do believe they will run me down.
So I'm trying to keep my patience as the 'season' progresses but it can be difficult. I don't want to be a crash dummy. And as I write this, my kid is 3 months away from getting her learner's permit. I don't know which is worse, the old folks (I call them headrest drivers because they're so short when you're in a car behind them all you can see is the headrest) without reflexes or the kid without experience.
Which brings me to the point - experience. On Feb 10th I celebrated the 20th anniversary of my first sale. I look back on that day fondly - I was at work when I got the call. In those 20 years I've gained some experience in the publishing industry, yet I am now falling behind. I'll admit it, I'm not fond of the digital publishing craze. This is my problem . . . it has been my experience that you often only get one chance with a reader. If they hate your book, they don't run out for the next one. So I did a little non-scientific study. I downloaded 10 uploads from Amazon. 9 of the 10 were not edited properly for simple grammar. Why did this bother me so much? Because after 20 years and 40 books, I still make grammatical errors that are caught by my agent editor, or copy editor. I'm far from perfect. But I have learned a lot from various editors over the years. The most important thing I learned was I always have more to learn.
So what did my non-scientific exercise tell me? 9 out of 10 of those people probably won't build an audience. The other thing it says to me is people who have written and properly edited their uploads might get lost in the wash of garbage (sorry) slapped up on Amazon. I'm sure there are some jewels out there available for download. I just fear the sheer number of people calling themselves indie authors and not putting their work through the appropriate paces will ruin it for the people who are doing it diligently and professionally.
Yes, uploads are here to stay. But I wonder what the fallout might be as eReader folks start getting pickier and picker.
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