My Quality Control Pledge to You
A Villainous Affair is self-published, which meant I had to be extra vigilant about quality control. Readers deserve the same commitment to professionalism from me as they do from a traditional publisher. No one is perfect—let me repeat, no one is perfect, including me—but I did my best to deliver a professional product to my readers.
That said, quality control is only one factor among many contributing to a story’s perceived value. Many books have excellent production values, but not all readers find them appealing. Subjective taste is fine and expected!
But if quality control is important to you, here’s a list of the efforts and resources I put into A Villainous Affair:
This series is four years in the making. That’s 48 months of developing the story, researching, writing, revisions, editing, and proofing.
AVA benefited from professional, paid editing (developmental, copyediting, and proofreading) by two editors who have over thirty years of combined experience in the publishing, tech, and marketing fields.
Professional, paid sensitivity readers whose insights I used 100%.
AVA has professionally illustrated covers and they were made by the amazing Elisabeth Peiró. Even if the books aren’t for you, please enjoy her unique, dazzling art!
Multiple and rigorous editorial passes to ensure that I avoided, to the best of my current knowledge and ability, the unthinking use of ableist, racist, and bigoted words/descriptions. I researched best practices in this regard and applied them. In rare instances, I used some words/descriptions, such as gendered insults, for social commentary.
The story features gender-inclusive language, gender-sensitive language, and gender-neutral language/pronouns.
I extensively researched Victorian-era London, a task that spanned four years and hundreds of hours of reading. I incorporated the information as the story required and in the context of creative license.
Each manuscript “sat” for a while, which meant I was able to approach revisions with more objectivity than if I had been on a deadline. This strategy enabled me to improve the story in numerous ways.
Like many authors, I took advantage of basic computer technology to reduce the likelihood of errors by reading the manuscripts on different devices and using MS Word’s editing and read-aloud functions.
AVA features intense and potentially triggering content, so a thorough list of Content Warnings is available for readers who need them.