Thanks to the advent of the internet with its email systems and blog websites, along with the flexibility of ebook production, it can be a financial breeze to get continuous feedback on a book as it is being written, chapter by chapter.
In the bad old days, even sending just one book chapter off in the post to some expert in a distant city for preview cost the author a lot in postage out and in and the response time was very slow.
And as for altering a book's text at the gallery proof stage - you paid dearly for every little change.
And even at second re-printing, if your book was lucky enough to get one - 95% never did - redoing the plate process for correcting just one little mistake was so costly, publishers found it cheaper to pay staff to 'hand tip in' (glueing) a small piece of paper noting the corrected errors to the inside front of every copy of the book rather than face that cost and difficulty.
Today, it is all different.
Posting a chapter on my blog , it can expect to get some critical comments from readers worldwide in an instant ---- eventually, maybe.
But if I email the link to the chapter on this blog to experts in the subject area that the chapter deals with and then plead to them to do their worst in tearing my facts and opinions apart, I might expect a few to actually respond --- it costs them and me nothing.
And my resulting ebook can still be endlessly and easily altered and amended, based on reader feedback, before it finally and officially goes off to Amazon to be made into Kindle.
Now I must find out how willing Amazon is to see Kindle books amended ---- after they have entered the great Kindle gene pool...
In the bad old days, even sending just one book chapter off in the post to some expert in a distant city for preview cost the author a lot in postage out and in and the response time was very slow.
And as for altering a book's text at the gallery proof stage - you paid dearly for every little change.
And even at second re-printing, if your book was lucky enough to get one - 95% never did - redoing the plate process for correcting just one little mistake was so costly, publishers found it cheaper to pay staff to 'hand tip in' (glueing) a small piece of paper noting the corrected errors to the inside front of every copy of the book rather than face that cost and difficulty.
Today, it is all different.
Posting a chapter on my blog , it can expect to get some critical comments from readers worldwide in an instant ---- eventually, maybe.
But if I email the link to the chapter on this blog to experts in the subject area that the chapter deals with and then plead to them to do their worst in tearing my facts and opinions apart, I might expect a few to actually respond --- it costs them and me nothing.
And my resulting ebook can still be endlessly and easily altered and amended, based on reader feedback, before it finally and officially goes off to Amazon to be made into Kindle.
Now I must find out how willing Amazon is to see Kindle books amended ---- after they have entered the great Kindle gene pool...
