Author Archives: chucklitka

I was born in 1950 and spent the 1960’s reading hundreds of SF books while dreaming of becoming a SF author when I grew up. I enrolled as a journalism major in college, but dropped that after my freshman year when I realized I was too shy to be a journalist. I then decide I either had the talent to write or I didn’t. Time would tell. In the late 1970’s I finished and submitted a SF novella, a SF short story, and a fantasy novel. They brought me a small collection rejection slips. I continued to write for fun. In 2009, now with a computer with a built in spellchecker I got more serious and completed three novels the course of next six years, for the fun of writing. I had no intention of submitting them to traditional publishers. Been there, done that. If I felt they were good enough, I’d self-publish them, which I did in 2015, for free since I don’t need to be paid for having fun. As of 2021 I have published 10 SF/adventure novels, 2 novellas and one children’s short story. I’m married. My wife and I have two children, and two grandchildren. I have lived most of my life in Wisconsin. I’ve worked at various jobs, including 13 year with a commercial printer and small town daily newspaper. I operated a cottage industry mail order tea business for a decade, and quit my day job at 53 to try my hand a making a living as an artist. Never made it big, never went bust. We’re retired these days and living a quiet life. The type of life I like.

Spotify Audiobooks

I am certain that all the writers who follow this blog are, like myself, against using generative AI to write our stories for us. Some of you, perhaps most, may also draw the line at using AI in any of its various forms, for any reason connected with your writing. However, if you are interested in offering your readership audiobooks, and lack the business to justify the expense of hiring human narrators, then a new opportunity has opened up for you. Namely, Spotify. Yes, that music streaming service.

Recently Spotify has begun to give indie-authors the opportunity to offer their books on their platform as narrated by a digital voice audiobooks. You upload an ePub version of your book and they will convert it into an audiobook at no cost to you. You set your own price. I’m not an audiobook listener, so I am not a good judge of audiobook narration, but I must admit, I rather liked my narrator, Nathaniel, who was, of course, the voice of a real human who was paid for his work.

The process of setting up an audiobook is pretty much the same as with the other audiobook services I use. You do have to be signed up with Spotify. Currently you have to reside in the United States. You have to give them your banking data so they can send you your royalties and the government your tax info. When you upload your ePub book, your blurb from the web is automatically loaded, which, I guess, is the state of the internet and world these days. There are the usual details to be filled in, like title, series, publisher, author, and genres. NOTE: I discovered that there is a limit of 5 books to this service. There is a character limit of 500,000 characters, so you’re looking at an upper limit of around 100K words. You have 6 male and 4 female voices to choose from. They offer a list of words to check the narrator’s pronunciation, which you can then correct if needed. Interestingly, they offer the chance to post a teaser from your book using up to 700 words that people can listen to before buying. You can only regenerate the audio 4 times, including while you are setting up the book, so determine your voice and corrected words before actually creating the audiobook. Still, all in all the experience, after your first time, is straightforward.

Not being a book platform, I have no idea how readily your books will be found, though I believe audiobooks on Spotify is a growing business. I am going to upload a limited number of my shorter books, and may report back in a month or two.

If you are interested, you should search for “Spotify for Authors”, since I did not see any option for accessing this service from my usual account page.

What Do We Know?

Over the years contributors and many commentators have shared their experiences, observations, and advice on this blog. I thought perhaps it might be a nice idea to bring it all together for the sake of anyone new to self-publishing who might find their way here – useful, practical experiences and advice from writers who’ve been at it for a while, i.e. people who know what they’re doing. Of course we do.

So what have we learned during our self-publishing journey? What would we do differently today if we could roll back the clock and start over? Any major regrets?

And having asked the question, I suppose it’s up to me to get the ball rolling.

I don’t have any major regrets. I made mistakes, but that’s part of learning.

Self-publishing was all I considered in 2015, at the age of 65, and I chose readership over pocket change. No regrets. I’m not a goal oriented fellow, so I’m mostly surprised at the 20 books I’ve written, and with my sales. Still, they’re never enough, are they?

My major mistake was not recognizing how careless I am as a writer and how special being able to proofread reliably is. I learned this the hard way. I am amazed that with half a dozen volunteer beta/proofreaders, how little overlap there is between the lists of typos I receive back from them. Luckily in self-publishing you can upload corrected copies as needed. My first books were re-uploaded a lot.

I’ve also learned that on-line grammar correcting software can’t be fully trusted yet. But it definitely makes the job of my beta readers a whole lot easier. It is now part of my process.

I’ve always written the way words and stories come naturally to me. I’ve read writing advice pieces just to sneer at them. I never use five words where ten will do, if they add personality. I never kill my babies. This seems to work for me.

I’ve tried different covers on most of my books over the years, and never found any difference in sales. I use a uniform cover design for my book covers as my distinctive “brand.”

I’ve learned never to write sequels unless the first one is a runaway best seller, since each subsequent book sells fewer copies than the one before it. Going forward it’s all stand alone books, with open endings. On the off chance.

I’ve learned that visibility, and perhaps visibility alone is the key to sales. I don’t know how to get it. I’ve never spent any money or effort marketing my books, leaving that aspect entirely to the free price of my books. That’s worked well for me. The cool kids are all into social media in order to create the visibility and buzz needed to sell their books. Maybe it works. Anything is possible.

Lots of people read books on their phones. Make sure your books are on platforms that serve books to phones – Apple & Google. Google has been a gold mine for me, I think for that reason.

Ebooks/audiobooks reach a world-wide market on a number of platforms. A lot of people in the world read English. The more affordable your books are, the wider their potential reach outside of the US is.

Audiobooks now account for between one third and one half of my free sales. $3.99 auto-generated audiobooks on Amazon/Audible haven’t sold for me.

Selling ebooks, even free ones, has grown harder every year. The market is consolidating around a relatively few sub-genre and best selling writers who monopolize the hype. If you’ a’re serious about making money, see below. But if you don’t believe me, do your research thoroughly. Write what sells.

Self-publishing is not a viable business, unless you count buying lottery tickets as a viable business. The odds of winning are about the same. Lottery payouts are far bigger. Just say’n.

I’ve learned that being a writer isn’t likely to impress anyone, if only because most people don’t read much. If you want to be famous and respected, get very rich.

I’ve found a nice community here to share my thoughts with and be part of. A definite big plus.

Your turn.

Solo or Ensemble?

Many forms of art can be practiced either solo or in a creative ensemble. A pianist can play piano solo, in a trio, or in an orchestra. Dancers can dance solo, as a couple, or in a group, as can singers. However, some forms of art, like fine art painting, sculpture, and the like, are usually solo efforts. Movies, TV shows, and plays on the other hand are almost always ensemble creations. So where does writing fit in?

Traditionally published books can be said to be ensemble work since traditionally published books go through an extensive development process, which these days, may start with re-writes requested by the agent even before the work is offered to publishers. Once the book is purchased by a publisher, a team of editors, artists, designers, and publicists , go to work to make the work as commercially appealing as possible.

Because all these publishing house contributions are anonymous, it is hard to say how much of the final shape of the story they have contributed, but judging from the praise authors often give to their agents and editors, (which I’m certain is not a symptom of Stockholm Syndrome) as well as a page or two worth of credit to others who have helped them write the work, one has to wonder just how much of the initial form and words of the story end up on the cutting room floor. Indeed, one gets the impression that if publishing was like music, the book cover would read “Author X and the Z Publishing House Book Staff.”

Which brings us around to self-publishing. One would think that the name itself – self-publishing – would tell you what’s going on in this type of publishing. I suspect that once upon a time, it was actually a true description. Those days may be long gone. My impression is that a more accurate term these days would be “self-financed publishing,” since it seems that a traditional publishing mindset is taking hold in the self-publishing world. While I am sure that self-publishing authors have long sought feedback from other people, and the assurance that they wouldn’t be making a fool of themselves if they published their story, these days it seems that self-publishing authors are expected to employ as many professionals as they can afford to publish their work. All of which makes the only difference between traditional publishing and self-publishing being who pays the wages of all the various professionals involved in producing the book, even as traditional publishers are shedding editors and other staff positions.

This trend annoys me in self-publishing. Especially the case for hiring developmental editors in self-published works. But on reflection, I believe that is because of my particular view of art, arising out of both as a painter and from my age. I started writing all of my published works after the age of 60, when I had read close to two thousand books and knew what I wanted in a story. Thinking about it however, I realize that for writers thirty or more years younger and less read than me, a case can be made for using editors to help these writers find their way, and in a lot less time than it took me.

That said, while I have no issues with writing as an ensemble art form, it simply isn’t my ideal of art. I view my stories like I do my paintings, which is to say a unique expression of me. I want to tell my story, my way. I think it works. I know from my experience in painting that all art finds its audience. The only question is how large of an audience it will find. In art, size doesn’t matter. While iIt does matter if we’re talking about creating a product, as art, no.

And by the same token, I embraced the whole process of “publishing.” As a painter, though not an illustrator, I could nevertheless produce some sort of cover. I also worked in the printing business, so I had an understanding of the requirements for print books. Where I lack the ability – I can’t spell and I’m far too careless and blind in proofreading – I found much-need help with volunteer beta readers. In addition, I’ve been exploring other options to help me produce better books, like adding on-line grammar checkers to my process. All of which is to say, I have pursued both my writings and my publishing, as solo art. And for the same reason – I want my art to be mine. And mine alone.

As I said at the top, I’m not against writing as an ensemble art. It may be necessary for commercial products, though with only a 33% success rate, and that 33% due in no small amount to the promotional budget of a book, one has to wonder just how essential certain aspects of it are. So for me, writing as a solo art is the most authentic form of writing. Which is why I love self-publishing.

Still, where do you guys land on this topic? Are you all in on the traditional publishing method, feeling that it produces a superior outcome? Or are you all in the do everything yourself camp? Or somewhere in the wish-y-washy middle? How much input do you need and use from other people to (re)shape your story? How much of the story do you think this input contributes? As someone who has the mindset that “here’s my work, warts and all, like it or lump it,” I’m curious to hear the viewpoint of writers who are perhaps more of a perfectionist than I am, or who are more open to embracing the cooperative approach, readily incorporating into their work the ideas of alpha, beta readers, and editors.

Are ratings/review important in 2024?

I’ve had an unplanned opportunity to test this question and it seems that they may be less important than we realize. When I switched distributing my ebooks to Apple from Smashwords to Draft2Digital at the beginning of the year, all the books lost their ratings and reviews. Since then they’ve had essentially no ratings/reviews. So how did this affect my sales to date?

Not at all. Indeed, in the last 8 months I’ve already sold more ebooks on Apple than I did in 2023. It would seem that having no ratings has had no adverse effect on sales, and perhaps even a positive one. Now my experience may be an outlier in that all my books are free, and my customers might be less persnickety than buyers of books that actually cost money. Those readers might rely more on ratings/reviews in making their selections. Who knows? Another factor is that most of my books are now audiobooks on Apple which might make my books more visible plus there may be some double audio/ebook sales as well.

Nevertheless, my takeaway is that we probably need not lose sleep at night wishing for ratings and reviews, at least for sales’ sake. They’re certainly nice to receive – thank you, Audrey – but these days they may contribute less to sales than we might imagine.

Speaking of audiobooks on Apple, all but three of my books have now been converted and sales have grown each month. Audiobooks now account for more than 46% of my total book sales on Apple. And to follow up on my recent move to unpublish all my books on Smashwords and move them over to D2D’s distribution to the Smashwords store – the move has continued to pay off big time. I’m actually selling more books on Smashwords than Amazon, after selling only 4 books on Smashwords in June. Go figure.

EDIT: In response to Audrey’s comment, I first looked at my books on Smashwords today and discovered that I’d lost all my ratings and reviews for those books there as well, no doubt by switching my books on my own rather than waiting for D2D to get around to it. And the remarkable thing is that they are selling far better than they had been with their ratings. (And they weren’t bad ratings.) I still think that showing up as new books was the key, in that new readers may have pick up one or two, like them, and have gone back to pick up more titles over these last two months. Still, it is interesting to see that blank slate books are selling so well, and have been given a new lease on their shelf life.

Why I’ll Never Be a Great Writer

While Mark was contemplating why he would “never be a good writer” I was thinking along the same lines, but from a different perspective. I was thinking of all the top-level reasons why my books would never make any of the various YouTube booktubers’ “My Ten Favorite Books” list. Or to put it more broadly, why my books will never be considered great.

From all the lists I’ve viewed, I think that it is safe to say that the overarching element in creating the type of books that end up on these lists, is ambition. The author needs to be ambitious, and then write ambitious books. This ambition has several attributes, though not all are necessary to make a book “great,” but at least some of the characteristics I’ve listed below must be present.

One aspect is scope. Favorite books are often praised for their ambitious world building and the sweeping scale of their story. Long, elaborate sagas – often multi-volume ones – set in massive, detailed worlds, with unique societies – impress readers, at least in the fantasy genre.. And even in literary fiction, creating a compelling immersive world is often heralded.

Much more important to writing a classic is tackling big, important, and universal themes. Books that discuss or illustrate important social or political issues like racism, sexism, colonialism, alienation, religion and the human experience are often held up as great books. They may also explore emotional themes like grief, loss, depression, as well as friendship and love. However, on the whole, it seems that the darker the theme, the more impactful and important the story is perceived to be. In short, they address universal themes that transcend the story itself. And in science fiction, an amazing original idea might be enough. One key to greatness is weaving something thoughtful and original to say on an important subject into the story. Indeed, themes and ideas are so important that some books are great despite being “challenging” to read and to understand. Some might even be unpleasant to read. Making the reader think is a hallmark of great books. You know, a “eat your vegetables” sort of thing. It’s good for you.

But perhaps the most important ingredient in a great book seems to be its emotional impact. Many readers read in order to feel. The more a book makes a reader feel like they are actually living inside the story, the more memorable the book. Though ,again, like with themes, it seems like the darker and starker the emotions the story generates, the more people appreciate it. Perhaps experiencing powerful events and their accompanying emotions, at a safe remove from reality, is the ultimate goal of entertainment.

Another ingredient can be characters. Deep, developed, memorable characters make for memorable books. Memorable characters are often mentioned as reasons for people loving certain books, and indeed, sometimes they are the main reason for some readers. Still, I have a feeling that they play only a supporting role in most great books, often for the emotional impact their fates generate. A novel with a cast of memorable characters may be enjoyed and remembered, but I’m not sure characters alone are enough to make anyone’s top ten books.

And finally, we can’t forget the craft of writing itself. There is no one standard of great writing, but readers know it when they read it, though this is probably the most subjective attribute of a great book. However, like characters, I doubt that writing style alone lifts a book to greatness.

Are there more characteristics that make books all time favorites and classics?

As I said, this is a list of some of the reasons why I’m not a great writer. I’m not ambitious. I write pleasant books without tragedies. I write them as cleverly as I can. I write them to take my readers somewhere else; a “You can’t get there from here” sort of place, and in the company of mostly pleasant people. I write books that you’re free to forget – and then maybe read again someday. In short, not a recipe for greatness. But like my books, not a tragedy either.

How about you? How ambitious are you as a writer? What do you aspire to achieve in your work?

Debut Again!

Just a quick tip for authors who have their books listed on Smashwords. You can get a second chance at being a debut author. Draft2Digital is slowly migrating Smashwords titles to D2D, but if they haven’t done this already for your books, you can do it yourself. You might consider doing so, as there is an unexpected benefit from doing it – your books, when added to the Smashwords store from D2D, are treated as new releases. As such, they show up on the landing page of Smashwords, where they will likely be seen by a lot more people than wherever they are currently lurking. I discovered this after I unpublished my books on Smashwords and then went over to D2D, where I already had all my books listed, and checked the Smashwords box on their list of stores to get them back into the Smashwords store. Being featured as new releases made a brief, but nice, increase in sales. If you don’t already have your books listed on D2D you’ll need to set them up there, but it’s a very simple process to old Smashwords hands. While your mileage will very, it could result in something like the bump in sales you get upon releasing a new book.

Failure’s Freedom

“If you ain’t got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose.” Like a Rolling Stone – Bob Dylan

Those two lines from Like a Rolling Stone are an anthem for me. I sing them along with Bob every time the tune comes up in my “Liked Music” playlist. I love the insight into freedom they imply. I think they could, and should, be the anthem of the vast majority of author/indie publishers as well. Them’s that aren’t making money at it. With nothing to lose, we’ve the freedom to write exactly what we want to write, how we want to write it. In short, it allows us to;

“Be yourself, no matter what they say.” An Englishman in New York – Sting

Stories are art. They’re also a consumer product, so it’s understandable that we’re tempted to write the stories we think – or hope – readers will buy and enjoy. But if you’ve been publishing stories for any length of time, you know that discovery – merely giving potential readers the opportunity to choose to read your book – is an almost insurmountable barrier to finding readers, and thus, commercial success. So, given the near virtual certainty of commercial failure, unless you’re a social media celebrity or a well heeled and wily entrepreneur, we author/publishers can safely ignore commercial considerations and simply write stories that appeal to us. We can create pure art, art as a unique expression of our creativity, and then publish it for the rare reader who somehow stumbles upon it and appreciates our vision. Their numbers don’t count, though I should point out that every popular genre, sub-genre, trope, and story beat was once a unique and original expression of some author. We’ve nothing to lose by swinging for the fence.

I should also point out that author/publishers can be in a unique position in the publishing world, in that we can actually publish our undiluted vision. In traditional publishing, authors are not trusted to publish the books they write. Books in traditional publishing, and even in indie-publishing these days, if you listen to the experts, are ensemble creations, co-produced with the help of various editors who work to make it better than the writer’s original version. And since these books are definitely commercial products, “better” probably means more salable. Some, maybe even most authors, appreciate this help – in the various acknowledgments at the end of books, they often give a great deal of credit to their editor. Stockholm syndrome perhaps? But as an author/publisher we can, if we’re brave enough, publish our work in its pure form. We can be ourselves, no matter what – any editor – might say.

Still, you’re likely thinking, we must consider the readers. What readers? Well, to be less snarky, let me rephrase that to say that, we should trust readers. All we owe them is an honest blurb, a sample of our writing, and the best book we can write. We need not concern ourselves with their tastes and expectations. We needn’t worry if they’ll like it or not. If I learned one thing in art, it is that someone somewhere will always appreciate anything. There’ll be readers who will like any story we write. And if we write a book that pleases us, we can at least be certain it pleases someone. A bullet dodged.

Given the steep odds against any commercial success, it seems to me that following our unique vision, without compromise, is actually the wisest course to follow. With nothing to lose, why not?

Of course you all do that already, right?

Adventures in Audiobooks

As promised, here is my report on my experiences with the various free programs to convert ebooks into auto-generated audiobooks.

The first off Google.

Google’s conversion process offers 12 female and 12 male voice options with various accents.

You can use different voices for different characters within the book.

You can listen to the book, modify the pronunciation of words, and edit the text of the book. Improvements to the technology are automatically applied to all audio books.

You can charge and change your price as you like, including free.

The process is pretty simple, given the many options.

It takes only hours for the audiobook to be available for sale.

Next Apple via Draft2Digital.

This service offers you essentially no options. Apple/D2D chooses from 2 female and 2 male voices according to the story’s genre.

You can not listen to the narration before the book is released nor modify pronunciation or text.

You can charge what you like. Changes after release will cost money. You cannot withdraw the audiobook in the first six months.

The process takes a minute, given that you essentially have no options to choose from beyond price.

You can set your price, including free.

It takes months for audiobooks to be available for sale. Five of the twelve ebooks I uploaded on the first of January 2024 remain unconverted on the 29th of April 2024. Conversions appeared at random over the course of five months.

Lastly, Amazon.

You currently have a choice of five female voices including one with a British Accent, and three male voices. More are promised coming this summer.

Promised upgrades this summer include using different voices for different chapters, and improvements to the voices. It seems that you will need to manually republish the book to receive the upgrades.

You can listen to your audiobook and edit pronunciation and the speed a word is spoken prior to release.

You are limited to books under about 240K words, or 27 hours of audiobook narration.

Books require a table of contents. The Kindle Create app will add tables of contents automatically.

The process is simple, and depending on how much you want to review and modify, fast.

Minimum price is $3.99. Audiobooks are listed in both Audible and Amazon

Are auto-generated audiobooks worth it?

Note: My audiobooks are free on Google & Apple.

Google – First month sales 431 audiobooks vs 288 ebooks. Second month 1,179 audiobooks vs 506 ebooks, with 5,813 audiobooks sold April 2022 – Dec 2022. This month, April 2024 I’ve sold 461 copies of both audiobooks and ebooks to date.

Apple – Given the erratic release of my books, and the limits of D2D reports, I’ll offer my March and April-to-date numbers. In March I sold 33 audiobooks vs 63 ebooks. In April to date (28th) I’ve sold 51 audiobooks vs 83 ebooks. Five month total: 127 audiobooks sold.

Amazon – I am only including the sales of books at retail price. In March I sold five $3.99 audiobooks vs 40 paid books. Of those 40, 24 were my new releases. In April I sold 2 audiobooks vs 15 retail priced ebooks.

Major downsides.

Google – the necessity of converting your manuscript into an epub on your own which may not provide a perfect ebook to convert. The last book I converted missed chapter headings, so they did not appear in the table of contents for the audiobook, though the text was there. I changed the chapters titles to include them.

Apple – The lack of any options or control over the product and their whimsical attitude to actually publishing the audiobook.

Amazon – the limit to the length of the book, the limits to pricing.

My takeaway.

Audiobooks increase total sales significantly, and can boost ebook sales as well – in proportion to ebook sales volume. They extend your reach into a new and growing market. And, well, you’re in the game at no expense to you.

Auto-generated audiobooks provide an acceptable listening experience, especially if priced below human-voiced audiobooks. I’ve had no reviews critical of the narration, and rating parallel the ebook version. They will only get better over time. And probably fast.

All three programs are free to use vs hundreds to thousands of dollars needed for a human to read your book. This gives you flexibility in pricing.

Audiobooks on Amazon

Did any, or all, of you fellow authors with books on Amazon receive an invite to try out Amazon’s new beta program of converting your ebooks to audiobooks to be sold on Audible using their virtual voice narration?

I did and I was wondering if anyone else received the invite and if you have, have you tried this service. I gave it a try, so if you have the opportunity and are interested in my experience, let me know, and I’ll describe my experience.

Proofreading with Google Docs and Grammarly

I’m a sloppy writer. I simply transcribe the voice in my head, paying minimal attention to the words I’m typing. Being a lifelong touch typist, I can clip along, stopping only to correct all those red underlined misspellings. Moreover, I tend to read what I expect to read, so between these two characteristics, I can read my manuscript three to six times and still miss many double words, many missing little words, and never see the difference between where and were, or its and it’s. I need a copy editor. I need my wife. And my beta readers. And Google Docs and now, Grammarly.

I write in LibreOffice, which has a rudimentary grammar checking function – one that begins and ends at telling me when to use “a” and “an.” Several years ago, I discovered that Google Docs has a much better one, so I uploaded and ran all my books through Google Docs to clean them up a bit. For my newest novel, I decided to add the free version of Grammarly to my proofreading arsenal. So how does this system work? Can you rely on Google Docs or Grammarly, or both to do your proofreading for you?

Google Docs does a good job of finding double words, some wrong words, and most missing words. But not all, as I discovered when I uploaded the Google corrected copy to Grammarly. It is good for detecting the proper tense, but it doesn’t pay much attention to punctuation or spacing.

For Grammarly, I used the free web version to proofread my latest book after running it through Google Docs. I uploaded it chapter by chapter to be edited. Before Grammarly edits your work, you’re given several options to choose from to set the level and aim of Grammarly’s editing process. I chose “Expert” “Informal” and “Tell a story” as my guidelines. So how did Grammarly do?

First off, Grammarly loves compound words. Google Doc never mentioned them. Before, I never knew when to compound adjectives, so that I almost never did. But after Grammarly, I’m going to compound every damn pair, as it seems that anything and everything goes. I’m exaggerating, but it was a lesson in the use of compound words. Besides telling me to use all those hyphens, I’d say 75% of the suggested edits involved adding or subtracting commas. I made the lazy editorial decision just to go along with Grammarly on commas, it should know, right? Before, I put them in places that I knew they belonged and when the voice in my head paused, and where I think the auto-narrator of my books should pause as well. However, Grammarly not only put in more of them, but I think it eliminated commas that my wife thinks should’ve been there. Though to be fair, while I believe that I would’ve also put in the missing ones – they were places that I would’ve put them – I can’t swear that I did actually have them there before Grammarly removed them. Grammarly also found more missing words, and corrected the wrong words, i.e. where instead of were, et al that Google Doc missed. So it was a plus, overall.

Grammarly also offered several suggestions for phases that it thought were too wordy. I ignored those suggestions. Given free reign, I’ve a feeling that Grammarly would strip creative writers of their authorial voice. Thus, my readers will read a few extra words, like it or lump it. It also would occasionally tease its premium service, telling me of two hundred ways it could make my chapter less wordy and confusing, if I paid them. The whole experience, however, was easy. You just click a button to make the suggested changes you approve of, so that it didn’t take me more than two hours to go through a 105K novel. However, you can, and should be fussier than I was. Lesson learned.

I was confident that when I handed this Google Doc & Grammarly proofread ms over to my wife, it would be a clean copy. It wasn’t. There was that question of missing commas, which can easily be addressed in the future, but both services also didn’t catch a few missing word – those little “to”s and “the”s – and neither made any objections to the semicolons I used, which my wife, a stickler for semicolons, objected to.

Note; for example, I’m editing this in Google Docs, and it underlined in red “semi-colon” just now, and suggested “semicolon,” but it didn’t object to the “semi-colon” when it appeared in the line above. These are the inconsistencies that make the Google Doc less than perfect for proofreading.)

Anyway, the semicolon issue can be fixed by going back to always using em-dashes for everything, like I have in the past.

So, looking at the big picture, when I started writing, my wife would find half a dozen or more typos and errors on every page. I’ve gotten more mindful over the last decade, so that now, together with Doc and Grammarly, there can be two, three, four pages without a single error, and most of those errors involve commas this time around. Which is to say, I’ve seen a significant improvement in the process. And knowing all the errors I corrected in Google Docs and Grammarly, I have to give a lot of that credit to Docs and Grammarly.

So, is it worthwhile to upload your ms to Google Docs, or upload it to Grammarly, or use both, seeing that neither are perfect?

The first thing to remember is that both services are free. You can’t beat the price, especially if you’re considering hiring a proofreader or editor. You have no way of knowing if that professional editor is simply using Grammarly Pro to do their work for them. I don’t think human proofreaders guaranteed their work to be error free or your money back. Given this, it would seem to me to be time well spent doing your own proofreading with the help of these two free programs. And if you want more of an editor than a simple proofreader, it might be well worth spending a little money on a month of Grammarly premium to see all those hundreds of suggestions it has to improve your writing instead of big bucks on a professional editor. All in all, I think that the free version is good enough for most of us, especially if you’re better at proofreading than I. It could simply serve as a quick quality check, and perhaps a tutorial on the use of commas and compound words.

Bottom line; you get more than what you pay for. They’re not quite good enough to produce a perfectly clean copy all by themselves, but they certainly can save a lot of time in the proofreading process.