Well…. that was different than I had expected.

Okay, so I finished writing the first draft of my book Hard Hats & Mixed signals yesterday, so I thought I would knock out the editing in a day or so and have the book ready to go by the 7 day deadline (which is Friday by the way, and I’m writing this post on Thursday night). Yeah…. well, we might end up with a delay.

I decided to use ProWritingAid to help me with the grammar, structure and general information of my book because I a) don’t have time to get a real editor, and b) didn’t want to pay for it – especially since this book is being written and published (in theory) in only 7 days, so I’m not taking it too seriously. Having said that, here’s what I discovered, and what happened.

So, I didn’t know anything about ProWritingAid until I looked into using it for this book. What I didn’t realise, was that I could look at the basic grammar information, but it only worked for 500 words at a time. So, I split my manuscript up into 500 word sections and started working at it, only to realise that there was A LOT of other feedback and grammatical information that I was missing out on my not having the premium version.

What I was getting was the general grammar, but also a very limited amount of the ‘premium’ examples that would have more detail if I subscribed. Otherwise I got vague messages like ‘better phrasing’ which helped me to look at the sentence again and try to make it sound a little better – still useful (also a generic example to select). I also ran through the very limited reports I could run without realising it, so I was stuck with extremely limited options, and some pretty substantial edits that were suggested. Which I wanted to do. Even though this book has a quick turn around, I still wanted to put out something that was of a pretty good standard.

So, I made the choice to get the premium subscription based ProWritingAid only to find out… the price had been in USD, not AUD. Too late. The money came out of my account. I still need to purchase the ISBN numbers too, though, so I’m up for more money again. Here’s what they cost:

ProWritingAid: $176

ISBN 10 Pack: $88

This experiment was costing me a bit more money than I had anticipated, and because there are A LOT more edits that I now have to look at (worth it, by the way), I may end up having to push back ‘release date’. I am still hoping that if I stick at it tonight, and work all day tomorrow, that I can have the book ready to be released on day 8 (which would be Saturday)… but I’m not sure. Either way, I’m looking forward to seeing just how much better the book turns out once all the edits are done.

Wish me speed!

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See You in the Adventures!
Christy Grace