Find, Find, Replace.
Find, Find, Replace.
You know the funny thing about writing is that it's a remarkably expensive barrier to entry if you want to do it right. I mean, most writing software is pretty expensive, especially if you buy specialized programs.
Find, Find, Replace.
But even if you use inexpensive software (or buy it on discount, like I did!), there are always hidden costs. Editing is a big one. A good editor is worth their weight in gold. I'm particularly partial to Dee Hopkins (contact info at the bottom) and she has great rates, but it's still not free (nor should it be: they're worth their weight in gold and therefore deserve at least their weight in silver!).
Find, Find, Replace.
But even after all that, there are little things. For example, I found a free How To guide online for turning my manuscript into an eBook for Amazon (or any other electronic publisher). It's all about turning your words into HTML so that they show up properly. The free guide, however, requires you to have a copy of Word.
MS Word, as I'm sure many of you are aware, is currently a yearly subscription for $70CAD, or a one-time expense of $150. Both painful. So I tried Open Office (an unmitigated disaster), I tried Google Docs (my manuscript is too large and constantly causes Google Docs to crash), and eventually turned to my consort to borrow her computer, which has Word on it.
Find, Find, Replace.
The OTHER thing the free How To guide recommends is another paid program for swapping out all the "special characters" in your manuscript for HTML code. For example, left curly quotes are '“ (I have no idea if that will show up). Right curly quotes are '”, and so on. This paid program automagically changes all of those.
Find, Find, Replace.
If you, like me, don't have the budget for another paid program, you can use a free program called jEdit. It does NOT, however, have the ability to replace special characters automatically. What you can do, though, is a standard "Find and Replace". Type " in the Find area, type the HTML code in the Replace area, and then hit Find and Replace once.
Just once! Because you can't replace ALL the quotes with the code for LEFT curly quotes. No, no. You have to do it for JUST the left quotes. And once you've done ALL those, you can do a Find and Replace All for the remaining ones which should all be right curly quotes at that point.
But after you hit "Find, Replace" once, how do you make sure you get the next set of Left Curly quotation marks to replace?
Find, Find, Replace.
Find, Find, Replace.
Dee's contact information:
Website: editorialeyes.net/services
email: Dee@EditorialEyes.Net
Twitter: @_editorialeyes_