I Need Help

grizzletoad1

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Okay, my book The Railroad Man is out and published. It has sold a over seventy-five copies since it first hit the Kindle in February, not to mention over one hundred that were given away during a free promotional weekend. And the majority of those copies are not the final version. For some damned reason, I keep finding things to change that do make the story better. I always find something that makes me say to myself, "Damn it! Why didn't I put THAT in there when I wrote the thing!" So I make the changes. And Kindle and Create Space make it easy to upload those changes into the books. I have a couple of more ideas and changes that came into my head over the last couple of days. I want to go and make the changes, but I somehow think it's not fair to the ones who have already bought the book (And have given it some pretty good reviews as it is, by the way) to make changes they will never see. When do you say enough is enough? When do you finally walk away from a project that has taken so much of your time and effort to produce? I'm finding it very hard to do so. Has anyone out there felt this way about your work? Please advise.
 

lizmonster

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My advice would be to stop fiddling with that book and start writing your next one.

Seconded.

And let me back this up with some facts:

  • You have good reviews.
  • You are selling well.
  • No book on this earth is perfect.

At some point you have to let your baby be your baby, warts and all. Because your baby is beautiful, and plenty of people love it and don't notice the bits that you keep noticing. I am betting that pre-e-book, lots of print authors read their own work and said "OH NO how did I let that get past me??" And they were stuck, and their fans didn't care at all.

Allow your book to be a good book, even with its flaws, and focus on the next one. Which will have different flaws. :)
 

Siri Kirpal

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Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

There's a saying somewhere that it take two people to create a masterpiece. The person who wrote it and the person who shoots the author before he/she can ruin it.

Every time I think about fiddling with a done deal, I recall an artist I knew who would paint the most charming pictures...and then would ruin them, making them muddy with over-painting.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

Namatu

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grizzle, the book is done once you publish it. Just because you can make edits and they'll upload to those who purchased the book doesn't mean you should. Egregious fact-based error? Sure. Otherwise, leave it alone.

No book is ever truly done. Try as we might, there may be errors. There are always new/better ideas. But if you've set that book out for sale, you're saying to the public that this is the finished product.

So step away from that file and open up a new one! Remember this experience though. When you finish your next book and prep it for publication, you may want to let it sit a little bit longer before giving it one last go-through for those belated-but-good ideas and better rested eyes that can spot those lingering typos.
 

pdichellis

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No book is ever truly done . . . There are always new/better ideas.

Amen. Reminds me of an artist's quote about painting that I've always liked. The artist said (something like): You can never really finish a work of art. All you can do is find an interesting place to stop.
 
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