Notes about editing of The Technojungle Safari Book Series online
This could be called, How to pre-publish and edit a book using WordPress. I don’t have a set method in mind, but here are some thoughts that come to mind along with issues I need to work out and need help with.
Why is my book available for free? Why am I doing this?
It occured to me one day that I have several needs for these books beyond my own abilities. I realized that these needs could be accomplished through pre-publishing online.
What do I need?
- Input and feedback on my writing, spelling, grammar, punctuation, clarity, conciseness, repetition, etc… the list goes on.
- Images other than sample, for reference only, ones I collected from the Internet. (Hey out there, if I have used your image, understand that my plan is to replace it.)
- Exposure to gain interest.
- A group of people who can help evangelize the books.
- Reviews that can be used for promotion of the books in the future.
- A mailing list.
- Funds to move forward. More about this below.
How can you help?
- You get the books for free, however, if you read please reply. I consider you an editor, so provide input as mentioned above.
- At the bottom of every page is a Leave A Reply box. Please use it.
- You can’t do this anonymously, I need to know who you are.
- I will keep you informed about progress and put you on my mailing list.
Will the books always be available online and for free?
As the books become finalized, there are several possibilities:
- In the future, I can make the books private and require registration for access (see below).
- WordPress has a built-in system for earning from a website. These come as plans with a nominal price and include charging, accepting donations, etc.
- Once the books are at some point of readiness, I can begin to charge for reading the content. Some promo content would be free, along with reviews.
- With some funds coming in, I can upgrade my WordPress plan to Business and then implement a registration process. The people would be considered subscribers.
- Even before registration is implemented, people who Leave A Reply will be supplying their contact information, the same goes for those who use the Follow feature.
- I consider those who read for free and participate in the pre-publication process by Leaving A Reply or Following in the early stages to be subscribers.
- My plans for the books include other formats of publication (see below). So the online version access could come with the purchase of the book in another format.
- Additional content and updated material could be easily included and made available to subscribers.
- The mailing list could be used to send out a newsletter by E-mail.
What other formats, besides online, will the books be published in?
- Paper book
- eBook
- AudioBook
How am I going to accomplish the publications?
I am doing everything myself, with your help, of course, as outline here. I will be doing the print layouts and eBook layouts myself. If I get to the audiobook, I will probably do that myself too. Having recently retired, I don’t have funds available for this project, so I must keep costs down and be creative about how I get each step of the writing and publishing processes done.
How can you edit?
Each chapter is a separate Page in WordPress. At the bottom of each Page is a Leave A Reply box. Here you can comment, make suggestions, corrections, and even copy chunks of text from the chapter and paste them into your reply along with your comments and edits. You can even comment on other comments.
Since Registration as a Member is not implemented yet on this website, you must also leave your name in your reply, as I mentioned above. You can also let me know if you think pre-reader/editors should be Members is a good idea and I will send out Invitations for you and others to register. Then your name will appear automatically in the Reply. I can also then make the chapters Private so only members can read them. This might be a good idea.
A note about repetition:
I admit to it being a problem and constant point made by reader/editors. However, I believe a certain amount of repetition is allowable. Repetition can help link new information to previous information. We call this linking thinking. Also, as new points are brought forward in text, revisiting previous points or questions might bring revised perspectives. Another reason is that readers may not be reading the final published books consecutively in the relatively same period of time. It may be some time between reads and repetition can then become reminder. Readers may also jump around in the books. Finally, the books are about questioning technology relative to being human, so many questions from various points of view, relative to new topics and information will always move thoughts, perspectives, ideas, feelings, beliefs and values forward. Of course, too much is too much. I may also have forgotten I mentioned something before.
What about questions?
At one point in the long path of editing, I changed a lot of sentences into questions. The result was that many questions were not really questions that begged an answer, maybe some though, but not necessarily an answer. I’m sure there are still some of these useless questions still buried in texts.
It’s mega project, so what is the plan?
This is going to be a long process because there are upwards to 80 chapters and I have yet to get the workbook going.
I am doing one final edit and tweak of each chapter and editing the BackTracks. The shorter point form BackTracks version will go at the end of each section and the long form will go in the Workbook. I am currently about halfway through the second section, about three quarters of the way through the first book.
I have published about half of the first section, about a quarter of the first book.
I continue to publish two chapters every Monday, so in a month, around the end of November 2020, I should have the first section of the first book published and I should be finished my final edits of the entire book.
At that time I will begin attracting more reader/editors using social media and any other means I can. I will also begin working my way through the second book, so I can be at least a couple of months ahead of the publishing.
Along the way, I hope to incorporate any changes I have received from reader/editors and to add the final images. This should finalize each book and make it possible to move toward the final publications as actual books.
That’s it! But I do need lots of help over the next year and a half to get both books done. Then I shall get the workbook going.
What else should I add, or mention here?
Your ideas.
Thank you for your participation in my Technojungle Safari books pre-publishing process. Your input is greatly appreciated. I look forward to hearing from you. Remember, Read & Reply, and make sure you hit that Follow button!
Bob Grahame
The Technojungle Safari 
I have already received a couple of suggestions—from my wife, in fact.
I should have my work copyrighted. I have a page already in my original manuscript for a copyright notice. I had not yet written it. So today I did and it is now added as a new page—Copyright ©.
Her other suggestion is to number the chapters. I don’t know if that is necessary. What do you think?
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I want to mention that, the input you provide may be incorporated into my original manuscript which I continue to tweak and update for final publication.
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