The Bleeding Hills - A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

As of today I have finished the last revision of my novel, The Bleeding Hills. The document is converted into a PDF, as is the cover. We’re ready to upload the files to LightningSource.com, an Ingram Books service. Monday is Labor Day, but they will work on the files by Tuesday, and I might receive the proof copy by the end of the week or early the week after. It really goes that fast. As soon as I approve, it will take only a few days for the Amazon.com listing. Amazon is usually faster than other Online sellers, but these other sellers – including Barnes & Noble – will follow soon. It’s time to get my well-prepared marketing plan into work.

I had my last draft reviewed by a professional Online editing service (http://www.firstediting.com), which did cost me a little over $600. Naturally, I had to go through their changes and check for consistency. I cannot stress enough the importance of having your work revised by a professional editing service, but I also have to say that I was a bit disappointed by the end result. The person, who revised my draft, did a great job in most instances to improve the readability, but she also made some changes to improve sentence structures that conflicted with my story line.

What I learned during this process, is to listen to the expert, but to make the final decision myself. In some cases the expert made changes that made me realize that a change was indeed necessary, but, ultimately, I changed it differently to preserve the consistency of my story line.

There were also “bad” changes, but they were usually based on lack of knowledge of the topic I wrote about. For instance, I referred to the Uilleann pipe as “the national bagpipe of Ireland”, and that statement is indisputable, unless you are not familiar with the topic. The editor changed it to “the bagpipe, the national instrument of Ireland”, which is not correct. The Uilleann pipe is a special type of bagpipe, but it is also so very different than a bagpipe.

Another good change to the better was to use italic fonts to differentiate between speech and thought. However, the editor was not consistent enough to change all thought sentences into italic font. Not a biggy, but it shows that the final responsibility lies with the author.

So, after revising all changes – and approving 99% of them – I revised it twice again and actually found some minor, self-inflicted inconsistencies in the story line. They are corrected now, and I have to say, I am quite pleased with the result. Being my worst critic, that means something.

I am, nevertheless, paranoid. I will read the proof copy carefully and I am not afraid to delay publication in the unlikely case I should find any minor flaw. I was looking forward to publishing the novel, but it’s also scary and somewhat saddening. Scary, because of being paranoid, and saddened, because I have been separated from my “baby”.

It’s time to concentrate on my next novel. As I wrote before, I have more ideas for books – the next two novels are already “brewing” in my brain – but I don’t want to follow the example of a John Grisham or Stephen King and being tied to a single genre of fiction writing. The next novel, The Fellow Utopian, is on a totally different topic – Immigration – and I will keep it that way. However, the thought of writing a sequel to The Bleeding Hills is very tempting, and I may change my mind…

Supplement, September 22, 2009:

As of today, The Bleeding Hills is listed on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.