What I've been doing ...

      ... is working on my family newsletter and correcting and editing Murder by Dewey Decimal. Yes, you'd think that I'd be finished with that, but I'm not. Much of what I've been doing is making the formatting acceptable to the various retailers and wholesalers. If I had only sold the book on Lulu, I wouldn't have to be doing all this, which is something I'm going to look long and hard at for Murder by the Acre. The rest of it is fixing omission errors (I found several instances where I left out words), continuity errors (referring to Cameron Veit as John Veit), punctuation typos (two periods instead of one at the end of a sentence and a closing quote mark at the front of quote), typos in general (your car instead of you car), and dialogue sharpening. I've discovered nearly twenty errors of various types -- no reflection on my proofreaders who did a marvelous job in catching most of them.
      So this isn't me just being obsessive, although I'm certainly capable of that, particularly since I found out that I won't be able to correct any errors once the book is published without either putting out a lot of money or creating a new edition, which also requires a cash outlay. Yet another consequence of not having the book only available on Lulu.
      So what does this mean about the release date? Well, now it's July 22. I should be able to read the third proof and enter the corrections and receive the fourth proof by then. I hope. If not, then it will be as soon as I receive the fourth proof and give it a read. Look, it's going to be in July. Really it is. I promise sort of. No, no, no, it will be in July. Really ...
      What exciting things will you be up to this weekend? I'll be working on the May family newsletter, laundry, housework, shopping, errands, etc. The usual. I hope you're doing cool things. Although I appreciate a weekend when things can go slow every now and then.
      The postcards announcing the book are ready to go. (They give a release date of July so it will be July.) These are going to friends and family, people I hope will be interested in what I'm doing if not the the book itself. There's also a press release that will be going out, but it won't mail until August when the MBDD is available for order from the online retailers, etc. It will be going to various newspapers where I know the editor or where the "hook" might interest their readers. (The hook being either I lived in that town or know the editor or mention that town in the book.)
      I will also be updating the MBDD website with the corrected first chapter and ordering information. What else? The MBDD T-shirts are available now at Cafepress.com should you like to be a walking billboard for the book. Click here to go there. Send a photo of yourself in the t-shirt to me, and I'll send you the first chapter of Murder by the Acre and another cool gift, yet to be decided. (Probably the first chapter of Dragons Gather or Darkness, Oklahoma or an essay from Floozy, my collection of humorous articles. Your choice.)
      Let's see. What else? I'd like to have reviews on Lulu and Amazon for MBDD. Jean graciously offered to review the book, which was very cool, although I'm not sure if she meant on her blog or at Lulu. Either way is cool and much appreciated from anyone who chooses to do so. Please let me know if you do.
      Oh, it's time for a Disclosure section. Many other bloggers have already done this after the government pressed charges against a few bloggers who gave good reviews to products and services without revealing they had received compensation to do so. I didn't think my little blog applied to this, but a friend of mine asked me the other day what Holly Lisle paid me to say such nice things about her books. Holly, of course, doesn't pay me. In fact, we've never met and only exchanged brief emails a few times. Anyway, here's my Disclosure: No one gives me money to say anything about anything, and I don't get paid to promote any products or services, except for my own. I also have no control over the ads that Google places on my blog and take no blame or credit and don't support or not support what is shown there. This blog is my opinion about life, and your mileage may vary. This will be added to my sidebar so that you can read it any time you want to, although I don't know why you'd want to.
      And now I'm going to close for the night. Have a great weekend. Talk to you later.