An unexpected new release, the pursuit of quality books and food for thought - a bread with bacon and cheese to feed the cravings

This week I published yet another book, after I'd decided to give it a break on the publishing part of the job and focus on getting my ever-growing pile of manuscripts written, revised. edited and fixed for a later date. I'd planned on having only one book release this year, that of Avalon Hall, due for publication somewhere around October. That was to be my ninth published novel and the first of a new trilogy, but alas, the idea for I Am the Night  lodged itself in my brain and would not budge until I put it down to paper. Or screen, in this case. Being a novella meant it was a speedy work, as were the revisions, the edits, the re-writes and everything else. Last Tuesday ot was finally published, with little to no fuss as it is intended mostly to fans of the Blood Trilogy. It's a companion novella for that series, after all. 

So I failed my "goal" of only publishing a book a year in order to work deeply in those novels I already have written and that lay collecting dust inside folders on my laptop. I wanted to give them time to sit and stew, so that I came back to them with fresh eyes, after having worked in other stories, other characters, other worlds. I thought this might improve my capacity to pin down what needs work, what has to change, what's not quite good, and it does. It happened with Avalon Hall, I nailed down quite a few bits and pieces that needed the distance and the time I took from it so that my brain could work out solutions with a fresh new view. Because as an indie author, as a self-published writer, I do want to present my best possible work to the readers. I'm not one of those people who'll tell you that you can only achieve this if you have critique partners, then beta readers, then proofreaders, then editors of all types, then reviewers in order to achieve this, no. I don't think you need all this. But you do need to take time with your book and time away from it, so you can better see what needs fixing. And you should really take that time.

Because if there's one thing that really drives me mad is a self-published author that didn't bother doing this. Someone who simply writes the book and immediately publishes it. This is bad for everyone in the business. Bad for the writer, because the book will have issues, bad for the reader, who will notice and get dispirited with those issues, bad for other indies because then we all get tagged with delivering a product that lacks quality and work put into it. Because look, it's not dishing out on amazing covers that's gonna assure a really good book. I've recently come across one such novel and it has left me so angry, so furious. Because it promised so much and it failed to deliver. I mean, the cover was really good, I loved it. Then the plot promised to be a really good one, and the first few pages I was really into it, I liked the writing voice, the style, the characters, the world building, I was really looking forward to that book and how it was going to evolve from there. I was hoping for something that would make me sigh deep with content and joy while reading.

But I was wrong. I was wrong not on the story being a good one - it was, it is. I was wrong not on the characters and the world building being really interesting, they are. Problem is, after the first couple of pages the entire book reads like a VERY rough first draft. I mean a very rough one. There were major grammar issues (jumping between tenses in the very same sentence, which for me is a really jarring thing, and I'm not sure if it was purposeful or an accident, because those bits where the author used the present tense as opposed to the other tenses used along the rest of the book felt like those lines had been hastily added there to be later developed into a proper piece of writing. Which the author had forgotten to do.) there were hundreds of typos - always the same typos like bought instead of brought - there were misspellings, lack of punctuation, you name it. It was a rough draft that hadn't even been through a basic spellcheck. As if the writer hadn't even bothered rereading their own work to see if there were any issues. When they finished writing they immediately uploaded it onto KDP and sold it on Amazon. That really maddens me, because the book had so much potential.

But that's not even the worst part, for me. The worst was seeing this book and the next one - it's a series - were offered to new subscribers of the author's mailing list. As an introduction to their work. And they hand you a shoddy work. As a reader, I would not buy into the rest of the series after this. Why would I pay for something the author didn't even bother with working it to its best results? It's like the writer didn't really care. As a fellow author, I'd be ashamed of doing this. I'd want the first contact the readers have with my writing to be as best as I can make it, not a rough draft situation. I'd want to make sure I'd at least put it through an online editor to search for such simple things as grammar issues and misspelled words. Because that's your greeting card, the moment you offer your books for free as a taster of your work. It's your greeting card for the world, and why wouldn't you want it to be the best it can? Assuring an amazing cover but not bothering with writing more than just the first draft is bad. Tells me the writer just couldn't be bothered. If the entire book had been trash - as I've come across a few times - I wouldn't even be angry, but it held so much promise, it had so much possibility of being a really amazing book. Why not make it so, then? If there's one thing I'd tell new authors is not to rush publishing. But also don't delay it so much it loses momentum.

It's down to a balancing act, in the end. Like these rolls. Bacon and cheese and a simple, tasty dough seasoned with wild oregano. A sure winner. And here's how you do it.

• 350 gr flour
• 7 gr fresh yeast
• 200 ml lukewarm water
• 1 tsp salt
• 1,5 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large handful of oregano
• five to eight slices of Flamengo cheese
• five to eight slices of bacon

Start by pouring water into a bowl along with the olive oil. Mix the salt into the flour, crumble the yeast and add it to the mix. Pour into the bowl and using the hook implement on your mixer, knead for 5 to 10 minutes, until it's smooth. Cover with a cloth and allow the dough to rise for at least one hour. It's best to allow it to proof for two and a half, three hours. Once that time has elapsed, turn your oven on at 180º, line a bread tin with baking parchment and reserve. On a floured surface stretch out your dough and knead it slightly. Divide the dough in small portions and flatten wach one out. Place a slice of bacon and a slice of cheese at the center of each portion, then roll the sides to cover the filling. Shape into rolls or the shape of your preference and slash a couple of cuts on the top so the bread steams and the bacon sizzles and the cheese melts in those slashes. Bake in the oven for about forty minutes, with the fan on - if you don't have a ventilated oven, place a tray with water at the bottom so the steam makes your bread rise. Let it cool over a rack and serve as entrée.