publishing wakes you up, too

This is a sequel of sorts to a post called “The Deadline Wakes You Up.”

I thought of this because I’ve decided to start preparing the Jan Sleet mystery stories for print publication. So, I’ve been reviewing them with that in mind, and suddenly I’m finding a lot of little things that need fixing (commas, paragraphing, a missing quotation mark, etc.).

These stories have been gone over many times, especially the early ones (which are the first ones I’m reading), and I thought they were pretty tight. But, faced with the idea of seeing them on paper, suddenly I saw that they needed some little improvements.

Which leads me to a question. There are thirteen stories (one may get cut, that isn’t clear yet). Probably at least 300 pages in all. Maybe even 350 (they are mystery “stories,” but some are really novellas). Would you be more likely to check out a big book with all the stories, or a slimmer volume with some of them (with a second volume coming later with the rest)? Or would you read them in e-book form, in which case I assume it wouldn’t really matter?

This is not going to happen next week. Even apart from the small edits, two of the stories need major rewrites. But, as I work on them, it will make a difference how they will divide up (since, in addition to being stories, they are also chapters of a longer narrative).