Afternoon, Sunday, April 20, 2025, Miami, Florida
It’s a warm and breezy Easter Sunday here in sunny South Florida, where the weather feels like a sneak preview of summer. At 82°F (28°C) under mostly sunny skies, with a gentle east-southeast breeze at 13 MPH (21 Km/H) and 47% humidity, the “feels-like” temperature is a balmy 84°F (29°C). We’ve already hit today’s forecasted high, and the rest of the day promises to be just as delightful—perfect for a stroll, a read, or a little creative work.
Speaking of creativity, I have some exciting updates to share! First, a heartfelt thank-you to the 20 readers who’ve already purchased Reunion: Coda in Kindle, paperback, or hardcover editions. Your support means the world to me, and I’m thrilled to have you as my “first readers.”
For those who haven’t yet picked up a copy, I’d love for you to join the journey. The Kindle edition, priced at just $5.99, is the most affordable option—and here’s a bonus: it automatically receives updates whenever I make corrections. (Yes, I’m still battling the occasional formatting gremlin, courtesy of Kindle Create. More on that in a moment.)
Now, a quick confession: while I strive for perfection, a few pesky errors slipped through in the hardcover edition. Most are minor formatting hiccups, but one was a first-draft section I thought I’d rewritten during my time in New Hampshire. Kindle readers will see the fix soon, but for those with print editions, I can only apologize and promise to do better.
Ah, and here’s where Kindle Create’s peculiar quirks rear their heads. Subheadings—those helpful signposts for readers—are a particular challenge. For reasons best known to the developer, the app insists on overriding proper capitalization. For example, if I write “The Day of Infamy” in Word, Kindle Create oddly presents it as “The Day Of Infamy,” forcing me to manually adjust it using the Advanced Fonts submenu. It’s tedious work, and the app occasionally reverts those corrections without warning.
And then there are time-specific subheadings. Imagine writing “Saturday, April 19, 2025, 3:42 PM” in Word, only for Kindle Create to change it to “Saturday, April 19, 2025, 3:42 Pm.” Yep, it’s exactly as frustrating as it sounds. While these quirks are fixable, they demand constant vigilance, a steady hand, and frequent saves to outwit Kindle Create’s whims.
Despite these challenges, I’m diving headfirst into a new Reunion-related project that I’m really excited about. Plus, my talented friends Juan and Adria are collaborating on a video to bring fresh attention to my first novel. It’s shaping up to be something special, so stay tuned for updates!
Thank you for being part of this journey with me. Whether you’re enjoying the sunshine, celebrating Easter, or simply savoring a good book, I hope your day is as warm and fulfilling as this South Florida afternoon.
A Certain Point of View, Too 
Comments
11 responses to “Easter Sunday Musings: Sunshine, Stories, and Subheadings”
It is annoying for you but for me as a reader it is not something I worry about.
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Maybe it’s partly my experiences as a copy editor in both high school (yearbook) and college (student paper) and a certain need for quality in the books I buy, but take quality assurance seriously. I’m reluctantly willing to let a minor typo slide by, but not passages that contradict the plot that came before.
Self-publishing gets a bad rap (still) because there are too many “authors” out there who rush out low-quality books (usually e-books) just to say they wrote something and make a few quick bucks. I’ve bought a few of these myself in the past, so I understand why many readers think “indies” aren’t as good as writers who publish through the majors, such as Penguin Random House or Hachette.
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Yes you are right. I’ve read books with so many typos, repeated sentences and words, unfinished sentences, garbled words, and other problems that you could not understand what was being said. That includes metaphors from foreign languages that were never fully translated, just translated word for word, making it illegible in English, such as “If the breeder refuses, raise your eyebrows”. What is that supposed to mean? That stuff makes you reluctant to get independently published books. However, the very rare and very minor typos you are talking about are not even noticeable and exist in all books.
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Luckily, KDP just emailed me with the news that my last “patch” went live last night, so now my conscience is at ease. At least any copies you might buy as gifts will have less goofs, and your Kindle version will have the fixes. 🙂
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That is great, Alex.
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Just make sure your devices are set for automatic updates. Of course, I can’t fix any issues in the print book you got the other day, but if you give new copies to friends, loved ones, and Little Free Libraries, the novel is good enough. (Remember: “Perfect is the enemy of Good Enough.”)
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Yes Perfect is often the enemy of good, or ever getting done. It doesn’t have to be perfect. But thank you for telling me.
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Luckily, I did a fair job of editing as I wrote the various drafts on the Master Document, so there was only one place in the novel where I had conflicting information. I’m content to have reached the “Good Enough” level of literary quality.
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Yes definitely and much more than that
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I hope, Thomas, that the novel will be to your liking when you read it.
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I know it will. I’ve already started. I Just have to finish my book club book first.
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