So today is actually the final day in my Kindle Scout campaign.
Please give this tired mommy-writer a break and nominate “Avalon’s Choice.”

Well played, Kindle. Your “1 day left” had me thinking yesterday was it, but it’s today, so here’s a nifty little thought: I didn’t win the Powerball last night. That must mean I’m destined for Amazon gold, right?

This morning, I stumbled upon an article about the Kindle Scout contest. You can read it here. The author and the commenters made good points about the writer’s responsibility, and in light of my red face, let me apologize for misleading cyberspace about my nomination deadline. The bulk of the article and comments focus on if Kindle does/doesn’t edit manuscripts for contest winners. The article was written with Kindle Scout launched in 2015, hence the subterfuge.

My key points:

• Writers should edit the material
• Writers should not assume Kindle will edit the material

It turns out Kindle does provide (outsourced) editing for all selected books, but honestly, if your name is attached to the book, don’t you want your best work out there? I mean, are you gonna half-arse it, shrug your shoulders and say, “It’s fine.”

Kindle does ask/encourage that authors submitting to Scout have manuscripts professionally edited. Fortunately, I had three editors and a beta group read mine. Why? It’s the smart thing to do.

You owe it to yourself, your readers, literary agents, your dog, whoever, to produce the best possible work for submission.

I’m a former newspaper copy editor. It was my job (and that of the copy desk) to make sure copy (stories, photo captions, headlines, display type, words, graphics, content, and the dreaded math) was clean. Clean, as in error-free, easy to read and understand, logical. If we didn’t understand something, we knew readers might not, either.

If mistakes get into print, readers (end-users) notice. And then they question your credibility. So get it right (yeah, me, too). Say, where’s the spell-check key on WordPress?