Cue the fanfare! Muddling By – A Rollercoaster Ride Through America’s Wealth Classes is launched! To be clearer about it, my newest book, Muddling By, has been published and is available on Amazon. For more of the details of the content, click over to Muddling By – A Rollercoaster Ride Through America’s Wealth Classes on my oldest blog, TrimbathCreative.net, which was inspired by my book about personal finance for frugal folk, Dream. Invest. Live. Muddling By is basically a semi-sequel to Dream. This blog, however, is about writing, so here is where I’ll divulge some of the many steps that connect content to a published book.
First: Yay!
It would be nice to post a video of me jumping for excitement, but count up my narrative books and my photo books, and hit about twenty such events. Now, I am pleased and relieved, but not dancing with expressive joy – well, maybe dancing, but I do that anyway.
Finishing the book is a celebratory event to publicly acknowledge, but I now understand the old adage that writing the book is only half the effort. Now, I switch from introvert to extrovert as I make announcements, meet and greet librarians and book sellers and readers. It is time to schedule talks. Talk prep will probably be another series of posts.
Reflection on Recent Tasks
That sounds like a dull title, but the last several chores required to publish a book are, for me, tedium, official tedium. Here are a few of the tasks that seem simple but take time.
The Proof
A previous post was about the Author Proof, the copy of the book that is basically a watermarked dress rehearsal authors can order before public publication. (Muddling By – Proof 092425) I got mine. I’m glad I did. There were things to fix.
The content was fine. I wasn’t going to change that. The layout and format were fine objectively, but there were a style points that even basically-bland me decided to fix.
Proof Pages
The big one was that I got the number of pages wrong by one. I prefer to have the critical pages (title, chapter headings) on the right side. The proof had them on the left. It wouldn’t change the narrative, but starting on the right side seemed right. Simple fix: delete one of the first blank pages.
Getting the pages to start correctly is hampered by softwares’ typical solution of showing page one of a file at the far left. Books start with page one on the right. But the software tends to not recognize that, so, to get the pages correct, the writer has to rewire their brain so the computer screen version is off by one. Fine. Been there. Done that. Oops. I added two, not one, blank pages. Delete one.
Well, if I’m going to fix that, I guess I’ll fix something else.
Proof Margins
One paragraph was bracketed by two lines. The two lines were printed to two different margins. Fix that.
Proof Section Headings
Duh and doh. The book is written in three general sections: intro, content, outro. The headings are different, but that’s basically the structure. The individual chapter headings were fine. But each group of chapters was clustered into a section. The section headings weren’t fine. The words and positioning were fine, but the font size was far too small. Simple fix.
Proof Book List
OK, so while I’m at it, the list of my books on the last page had some wonky formatting. Again, a simple fix, this time in center versus left justification. Not a biggie.
Proof Oops
I saw one thing I’d like to fix, but fixing it could cause more problems than leaving it as it is. Font size. I think the font size is acceptable, though small. It is about the font size I find in old science fiction novels, so I know that it is readable. But, maybe it’s my age that considered notching it up a size or two. Unfortunately, notching the content font has two may repercussions: page count and consistent formatting.
Maybe changing the font size from 11 to 12 wouldn’t change the page count, but if it did, then the book gets thicker, the spine gets thicker, and the cover needs to reflect that. Changing the font size could restart the design and upload cycles. Ah, at least this is an additional incentive to publish the e-book so readers can grow or shrink the font size to their preference. (Add e-book to the To DO list.)
Changing the font size at the start is easy. Global changes are a computer’s skill. Changing the font size of the content Should be easy. Done right, I suspect an expert formatted a book so global changes to content, and headings, and whatever else can affect only that aspect of the book. I don’t have that confidence. The best way I know to make sure the headings and such aren’t affected as I change to content font would be to manually select every group of paragraphs, change the font, and move onto the next. Unfortunately, each action is an opportunity for an error.
Leave it as is, and if there’s a big enough cry for a change, re-release a revised edition.
Timing
It is October, less than three months from Christmas. Shoppers are starting to shop. My book about personal finance and America’s wealth classes may not be block-buster material, but missing a shopping season is missing an opportunity to get the message out there. Publish now. The readers and the market will tell me whether a revised edition is needed.
It is almost 2026. Readers of my Exodus/Genesis series (Firewatcher, Fire Race) have asked for the third book. Cool. Thanks for the interest. I’ve been busy. In addition to Muddling By, I am also taking the photos for Twelve Months at Hurricane Ridge, and putting in at least a token effort into finding folks who are interested in my great-grandfather’s true-life tall-ship story from 1876. The next Fire book has been waiting for Muddling By to get out of the way. OK. Get Muddling By out of the way, which is more than just publishing it.
What’s Next
Welcome to the extrovert aspect of writing: marketing. Get the word out, and because I’m self-publishing, that means it’s me doing the work.
- Gather the right graphics for web content, business cards, displays, etc.
- Gather the various book and bio descriptions so I can quickly respond to requests from libraries, bookstores, and columnists.
- Make sure my Amazon Author Page is updated.
- Regularly post to social media.
- Meet and greet those librarians and book sellers who might carry the book.
- Meet and greet people who might want me to give a talk or teach a class. Keep in mind the cross-promotion benefits to tie in my other books and works.
- Submit copies to local libraries and The Library of Congress.
- Produce the e-book, and prepare to replicate a lot of this work for it.
- Oh yeah, and somewhere in there, do a bit of celebration, relaxing, and recuperating.
Writing a book takes time, but has a finite end. Supporting a published book can be limitless. Some books even outlive their authors. Muddling By now gets added to my bookshelf (oh yeah, gotta get new business cards). It and about twenty other projects benefit from my attentions. It can be a lot of work. I do a lot of work, but I could do more, which can explain why they haven’t sold better, but could also explain why I need some rest, relaxation, and recuperation.
OK. I just convinced myself to finish this post, then take a nap. But, of course, there’s laundry to do, lunch to make, … So it goes. Thanks for being there.
tomthewriter.com 
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