In a recent post[1], I talked about a review I got from Jefferson Smith[2] that pointed out some flaws in Sand and Blood[3]. I'm still a bit humiliated about it, but I've just finished what I felt was the only action.
2: http://creativityhacker.ca/2014/08/28/sand-and-blood-by-d-moonfire/
3: https://sand-and-blood.fedran.com/
I had it copy edited.
I'm really big into semantic versioning[4]. If I was only fixing commas and missing words, the version would have been 1.0.4. However, I made two slight clarifications so the book ended up being version 1.1.0.
The biggest is making it a bit more obvious that Miwāfu names are only accented on the ultimate name. So, the clan is “Shimusògo” but it is “Shimusogo Rutejìmo.” A lot of readers thought I made a mistake by missing the accents, but it's intentional.
There are some cases where two names are accented in the quotes of this book. If you look at who made the quote, you might notice that the person speaking is not from the desert (judging for the names).
I uploaded the various sites on the 19th of this month. I also found out some interesting things about changes to ebooks. It is really easy to upload changes, but Amazon and Smashwords actually deal with it differently.
After you upload to Amazon, anyone who buys a new book from that point will et the newest version. For those who already bought a copy, there is no automatic notification of the new version nor is there an ability to download the newer version. There are only two things you can do. One, individual purchasers can send an email from Amazon asking for it. Two, you can contact Amazon and tell them there is a change along with some proof. They will decide how significant the changes are and do one of the three things: nothing, silently allow updated, or inform everyone about the change.
Smashwords, on the other hand, just lists every version of the file since the point your reader bought a copy. So, for Smashwords, all you have to do is tell your readers to grab a newer version.
I'm not entirely sure about the other vendors, but those are the two bigger ebook publishers that I use.
Print is harder in a lot of ways. Once I updated the PDF version, I had to order a new copy of the book. Since I once had a completely borked version because of a bad font, I actually order it and wait for it to show up instead instead of just ordering it and immediately approving the proof.
Today, I got the proof in the mail. It looked pretty good so I approved it.
However, there is no easy way to update print copies. That was actually the crux of my problem with these corrections, but I decided I'd replace any old version from someone who asked. Just send me an email at contact@moonfire.us[5] and I can arrange for something.
The hardest part about projects is letting go. Obviously, I didn't do with this one, but I honestly felt that there was enough things wrong to justify fixing it.
Unless there is something critically wrong, I'm not planning on updating this again. I have too much to focus on Sand and Ash and Sand and Bone. I still want to have the entire trilogy done by WisCon[6].
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