My Completely Unbiased Review of My Manuscript

It's not bad!

I finished re-reading my manuscript yesterday and surprisingly, the story held up well. It may be done. I'm going to run it through spellcheck, which is not overly helpful. It won't tell me important things, like whether I repeated a word (like "the"), which happens as a result of cutting and pasting or getting interrupted in the middle of a thought. I didn't find any gross errors in my re-reading, but it's easy for the eye to skip over those things. 

There was really only one scene that required clarification, and I also changed a few words here and there, but mostly I left the story alone. I didn't have a good last line, and I gave some thought to writing something that would summarize the journey, or something pithy that conveyed some wisdom. Then I realized, just finish the damn story! I kind of hate authors who need to proselytize their endings, as if I, the reader, am too dull to grasp a book's meaning. Thus, I left it where I left it. I don't know how ARC readers, of which I apparently have two, will feel about it, but one never does know, do they?

I've thought about using the text-to-speech app in Word to hear how the story sounds, but it's annoying listening to a computerized voice that pronounces each word as it's literally spelled and that puts no emphasis on parts that need it. Pretty drone-y. I have no idea if there's any AI programs that do better and I'm not sure I care enough to find out. 

Non-writers think that once a book is written, that's it, when in reality that's far from "it".  Number one on my list will be writing the blurb, then formatting the book on KindleCreate, then making epubs for my ARC readers. I'm toying with using a site like BookSprout for ARCs this time, because it's relatively cheap and likely a bit more professional than what I would be able to produce. 

I don't know if I'll bother with putting out the word for more volunteers. I did get a few last time from a couple of Goodreads groups, but not enough to really make a difference. With an ARC hosting site, I could also theoretically do another LibraryThing giveaway, but the last one left a bad taste in my mouth. I'll have to think about that some more.

As for promos, again, I'm not sure which promo sites work best for yet-to-be-published books, or even how that would exactly work. I'm sure there are some, though. Otherwise, I won't even need to think about promotions until the book is actually published. 

Before any of that, though, the manuscript needs one more read-through. 

How do I feel about finishing? Good; not ecstatic. Probably relieved more than anything. I somehow managed to pull this story together and do it well. Not as in "best selling well", but I was never going to accomplish that anyway. I met my own expectations, mostly, and bottom line, that's the most important thing.