I am using the FIRST affinity publisher and not the new one. It is a matter of principle with me. They promoted they were the fight against Adobe and how they have become so greedy wanting you to rent the program and not buy it. So the makers of Affinity came along and said, Hey, we are going to make it so you only have to buy it and not rent it. This is all fine and dandy. They they have the updated versions. Then suddenly, they don't have any more updates, they just come out with another version.

Nope, I shall stick to the old one which I am still figuring out and frankly, there isn't a program out there that doesn't glitch! Just make something into a PDF and see!

So, I have learned to keep notes. I set up a series of books I keep all my metadata in (they are in my low content section on this website...I am old school, I want a hard copy!). These help me to keep the sizes of the books the same, margins the same (unless I decide to change them for some reason, and so on. It makes like so much easier.

I also do NOT make the book until I have done almost all my proofing and editing in Open Office. The less changes I have to make in Affinity Publisher the better.  Partly because I made the mistake of using a Canadian dictionary in my first book and it just came up as error everywhere no matter how I changed the preferences in sooo many places on Affinity Publisher! So I do it elsewhere and then disable it in the flight preview section. It is just easier. I use UK English for the most part because it is almost the same as Canadian Grammar but of course, the book still gets words highlighted in US grammar! I ignore it now for the most part and at least I get no yellow or green dots coming up saying there is a spelling issue. To do this, I customized the preflight messages.

Now setting up the book can be tricky. Make sure you put in bleeds and click it when you make the PDF. Also make sure you have the book size where you want it. If you have to change it, I recommend doing the book again. Trying to deal with all the sizing of text boxes, which I have found no way in that program to do as a group, is a pain! I could put the text box in the master pages but I find it screws up the chapter beginning pages. I just can't get it to go quite right.

After you have your bleed and margins in, then click and make the book show in facing pages and edit the masters again. I find when I don't they save funny and can get crazy. I just find it easier for me. Who knows for you made you can set it up as facing pages and it doesn't glitch when you make it single pages to make the PDF to upload. I found it sent the pages all over the places and I have just too many exceptions with images, etc. If it works for you to set it up as in Facing Pages to start then go for it! Whatever works!

I put all the pages from the masters as even or odd and do not put in the beginning chapter page until the very end. Every time you add pages especially when you ware working on the book in "facing pages" it will only add pages from one side so you have to right click and then hit "apply master to all pages" and select the one you want. This will sort the blank pages out but unless you want to exclude you will also be you might as well just do the chapter pages last mind you: ALWAYS MOVE THE TEXT USING THE ENTER BUTTON DOWN TO THE PLACE YOU WANT THE BEGINNING OF EACH CHAPTER TO START before moving on to the next chapter, otherwise you will have text possibly needing to link again and it screws things up. And trust me, making the text box in one place will also lead to more issues. Just enter until it is where it is you want it on the page.

The other thing I do is I like chapters. They may go in one at a time however it is important to link them when you add so edits and inserts flow or you may find the end of chapter 13 down at the end of the book! A real drag!  And remember. to post text and have it flow to the next page, just hold shift key and hit the little red triangle in the flow text on the side of the text box. Took me four videos on You Tube to find that little tidbit! Crazy! It is so important, but no one else seemed to think it was! Then your text will flow to the next page!

Also, because so many computers are not that great at managing a book formatting program, I don't link the chapter until after I have checked to make sure nothing glitched when I added it. Sometimes the writing program will do something funky in Affinity Publisher and make it not stay true to the formatting you have checked. You also may want to check to make sure the hyphenation is checked so there are no unsightly holes when you do the both side justification. And don't forget your widows and orphans! So just make sure you are in your text tool, and click on the chapter you just put in. Select all or control "A" and highlight everything. Check your font, the size and all other formatting. I do this usually before I flow it to the other pages. Then you can link it to the previous and carry on.

So make your really big decisions before you start the book process and have almost all your proofing and editing done. It will really help.

My first book took me forever partly because it was always crashing. I should have not done the edits in the program. Life would have been so much easier! This next murder mystery took a 16th of the time to make and I don't know about you, but I want to spend more time writing and less time formatting.

Next time we shall talk about the back blurb. Oh isn't that a challenge! Happy writing!


   

           I promised I would talk about all the mistakes I have done with my first book and what I do differently now.
         First, I will talk about SAVING FILES~you would think this isn't an issue, but as you do edits, things get lost or misplaced. I remember making an entirely new proof of my book from an older version. I have a friend who helps me proof since I can't afford to hire someone and she is quite used to doing it so I am fortunate. Even so, mistakes get made and I made the mistake of jumping the gun on ordering my first proof. I was impatient and wanted it in my hands immediately. HUGE mistake. I ended up doing about 10 proofs! Ridiculous!
          So this time around I did a few things differently. First of all, they say just get it down on paper and worry about the edits later. NOPE! I am more careful to have all names decided and places and other aspects of the plot so I don't have to go back and change so much or find things later on. If I do something unexpected to my layout, I make a note of it. Same with any changes. I note everything now.
           To begin with I use  LibreOffice. Writer The way it is made is much less complex and the coding is not what my son calls spaghetti coding like the more recent Word is. That one was just too much for my computer to handle, the style presets kept disappearing and that blessed space between every paragraph which is set as the default was a real pain to fix.  LibreOffice Writer still has the space between but it is so much easy to do. The program isn't perfect and it does has its limitations but it is free and it works. So I can't get a default set up (haven't really tried though!) of the formatting I want however I just make the changes for each chapter before I write it. Right click on paragraph, go down to bottom to "edit style" and make any changes you want there. I put my indent at 6 and check the box that says no spaces between paragraphs, and the space between lines I want, I then change the font to the one I purchased and set the spelling to what I want and size of font. Takes about two seconds and saves me tons of headaches!  I know how to do it in Word but for some reason when I use Affinity Publisher to format the book the newer Word program just does not jive well without a lot of fiddling. I have no use for that.
        I also also call each file folder E1 or E2 or E3 and so on. This means Edits 1 or so on. This way, when I get something back from my friend done, I can check it and save it in a different spot to keep from confusing things. In all my files, I have an "OLD" folder. I don't want anything anywhere that may confuse me. LOL I am easily confused especially when I have spent hours on the computer!
         Finally I have found a way to do the edits so that I shall need fewer proofs. I send all the chapters off for my friend to look at and correct. There is often a great deal to fix and she will, of course, miss a lot. I then look it over and send them back but I found there was just too much being missed so I started doing two things. The first thing is I only use "Find and Replace" sparingly because it really can be a sucky outcome. It can change the flow and the character of the words too much. IT is handy if you think you are being redundant with some words though. Finally I have learned to skip, you just hit find again and it will move on so you aren't replacing things you shouldn't replace!
         Once you have done everything you want to do there, you then open it in a read aloud program and have it that you have the read aloud on while you follow it in your other document. You would not believe how much the mind fills in and how many mistakes you will find because you can tell when you hear it, it isn't correct! I just use a free one and not the really good ones but in time I will have that but that's for later when I start making audio books.
         The last thing I started doing is going with one chapter back and forth at a time. This means my friend does it, I copy and save it as an E2 or E3 and look it over and send it back. Just the one chapter. I don't move on until I am satisfied with that chapter! I find it means there is far less messing about once you get into formatting the book in a publishing program. I will go into this at another time.
          When you are editing, having that gallery of characters and their names makes life so much easier. Also it you get caught up in what your writing, sometimes you can accidentally put in a wrong name. It does happen but not good! lol
          There are tons of things to think about when editing and it is nice if you have someone you can discuss things with like whether that was believable or that person was too this or that for the scene. I hope everyone has someone like to help them with this part. It is the most important part of writing. I also learned that not everyone is as good at proofing as they think so never take what someone says as gospel. Check it yourself also. Lastly remember the old saying, "Too many cooks spoils the broth" because this is also true of editing.
          Oh yes, never forget SAVE<SAVE<SAVE and back things up. I didn't and I lost a very valuable gallery because the program glitched! Also never open from "recent". Go to the file and open it from the source, it will also glitch less often.
          Well, time to get back to it. Have a great time writing!

One of the things I find most interesting about writing is how lost you can get in it! I always do a mind map of whatever I am writing. I have it figured out as I go along loosely. Of course things change as I realize connections change and characters need to be added or mistakes need to be corrected.  And there is this lovely thing called "plot armour" as my son calls it. He hates when out of the blue without any lead up, how the protagonist suddenly solves the murder or something else like this. Well, my mysteries have a paranormal element so that keeps it fun trying to make sure everything is accounted for from the dead AND the living! lol
     I actually create a visual gallery of my characters- those that are the good guys, the bad guys and the possible red herrings. Add to this I also do pen and ink drawings in my books that usually are some how related such as a setting or something. So this is a warm up really to get me ready to do the writing. Then, I can usually write a few chapters at a time, averaging the word count to the amount I want. I can refer to my gallery, my time line, my tension within my plot line, etc. This means I am less inclined to make mistakes because I am tired or whatever. By the time I sit down to write the book, it is already done in my head...as well as the next three.
      So once the book is written, then the fun begins. EDIT EDIT EDIT. I will have more to say on this another time. For now, lets just say, it is a very necessary evil especially when you have issues with your to-be verb tenses and you keep slipping into past tense when you are writing it in the present!
      The next book in the series I am doing is very different that the first. I won't say how, but the tone and the content is different. The ending is still interesting, but in a totally different way. Once more Martha will save the day!
       Next blog I shall talk about second books and learning from mistakes....or so I hope! Take care and have a great day!

I am currently living in the golden triangle for coffee in Colombia and it is coming into the rainy season...in other words, fall winter. Summer was extremely hot so a nice 75 degrees F is not bad at all. The thing is though, where I am is called Colinas De Cafe or coffee hills. It is higher up and boy, the thunder and lightening is close! Blew out a transformer! I now am the proud owner of a power surge protector/power station just in case! Last night the banging from the thunder was so loud it kept waking me up! This is life in Colombia!

I wasn't going to talk shop about books on here but I do want to mention new research is showing trends are now running towards shorter length books! Some feel it could be because of box sets however I think it is just folks have so little time. During Covid, there was plenty of time during lock down but now everyone is off to the races.

I do want to mention my book, Mystery of the knowing is NOT 12 pt font. It is 13! this means it is a bit of an easier read and for folks like me who suffer from eye strain because of being in front of electronics a lot, it is a fast and easy read!

Oh and for fun, I shall be doing some little blurb videos on Tik Tok soon. That should be a hoot!

It has always been easy for me to come out of the closet on being gay, but on being intuitive? NOPE! I was not raised to talk about it. It just IS!  In future I MAY be doing some readings online. I do have an obscure website...not sure yet how I feel about that! Time will tell!

So have a great rest of your weekend and see you mid week!