Friction Friday
Print problems, fresh fiction, and the 80/20 rule
Shorter Friday Newsletter message today, because life leaves me busy. King in the Dark's print edition is taking a little longer than I hoped.
I am a bit of a perfectionist, and, in contrast, I can be lazy… my many faults aside, knowing when to stop is a vexing question.
Effort
Spent │ █░░░░░░░░░ (Minimal) -> 80% Good Enough
│ ██████████ (Massive) -> 99% Perfect
└──────────────────────────────
Value Gained
There’s a logical argument that chasing perfection is a perfect example of the law of diminishing returns. The 80/20 rule or Pareto Principle applies because achieving 80% is often hard work; pushing to achieve more can take longer than the first eight-tenths did.
Creating a cover is part of the exercise, as is reviewing the PDF, the preferred format for a book upload that becomes a print-on-demand edition.
Part of that is, as ever, the business of correcting typos, sorry about those... but it’s also making sure the book works page by page.
All this takes time.
In some ways its a frustrating process. After so long writing and editing, it’s another set of challenges.
As a writer, I am practised at putting words on a page. I do that every day, but publishing the material comes around less frequently; months spent writing, versus the time to format the text so it uploads well, is a more novel challenge. It gets easier each time, as with anything else, practice helps.
It usually takes up to three days for a print book to appear, so while I can’t say it will be available today, stay tuned!
In other news
My adventures on Substack continue.
I am revisiting my short Flash Fictions, and you can find the polished versions here and as I post them. At a pithy 600 or so words, they don’t take long to read, and I hope you’ll enjoy them.
That brings me to My Boy Jack
Those of you who have read the reader magnet will be familiar with this story. I am serialising it on Substack for those who prefer this approach and to reach more readers.
I do have a modest paywall, and once My Boy Jack is posted to Substack, I’ll start posting new material, the first book in the Chimera Cycle, here.
The first novella will then go live to buy when it’s finished!