Who broke my English!

[unclegarf]

Now call me old fashioned. I'm English, born slap bang in the middle of England. Educated back in the day when we used chisels and stone tablets, I had my knuckles whacked if I got it wrong.
As an example, in One Man's Dream, I would prefer metres for measurements,not meters. Even on here, metres red lines. On my U K English loptap it goes through as metres. Probably because I never text anything, I stubbornly stick to U K English but fear I maybe in the minority these days. Do I get with the program or hang on to my dinosaur mentality? 

While I have your attention, what about my cover? This is the original paperback cover and it is easy to blank out the text and redo, but I think the image is good. It is all very subjective. I want to use the same image,( probably only changing the text,) so as to be fair to anyone who read the original. Off the Zon page as I couldn't figure out another way. 

 www.amazon.com/gp/product/1475086520/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p2_i3

Julie is going to have some fun with the cover which will be posted here in due course, so watch this space and get involved.

[djmills]

Being Aussie, I learnt UK English spelling. Now I select Australian English in Word and let the program underline my spelling errors. Then I check the corrected spelling suggestion in my trusty Collins Dictionary.

Your cover is beautiful. Hope you do keep using it. I would open the image in Photoshop or GIMP or another image editing program, select the text and paint black, then type the new text in the colour you want, and save as a jpg. :-)

[unclegarf]

Julie thinks it is too yellow.
The old version has that cover and I like the black lower quarter as it is easy to put any text / font. I use photoscape as my photo / picture modifying software. Tried gimp etc years ago, but for me my freebie photoscape does what it says on the tin. Julie wants to play with the photo so it will be interesting what she comes up with.
Every possibility I'm off to uni soon to start an art degree, so maybe I'll be painting my own covers. I'm 66 Y O so should be 70 something when I finish. Think it will do my career prospects any good?
Anyway, as they say, here's one I made earlier. I was going for a Buck Rogers style image. Painted in oils, photographed then text added with photoscape. Nobody bought the book so I suppose they didn't like my cover. Link coming right up.

www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01G8XKGVK/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p4_i1

[djmills]

Congrats with the Uni Arts Degree. Sounds like hard work along with a topping of fun. I prefer to do online free digital art classes. Easy with no worries about exams. :-)

I like the cover in the linked book. Covers catch the reader's attention, reading a well written blurb gets them to buy, so I guess you could look at rewriting the blurb first, then if no sales, you can grab a spaceship off one of the digital art sites to refresh the cover. :-)

[chelsfield]

As someone fluent in both American and British English (an American in Britain for over 20 years), I'd say it's perfectly fine to use British spelling as long as you are consistent with it throughout the book. Of course, a good number of readers from other countries will be fine with it as well. And if a majority of your readers are from those countries then no problem. But if a majority are American, or if you want to take a shot at that larger market, then probably best to go with American spelling. There will be quite a few who have no problem with British, but then there might be a fair few who do. With print books this is not generally a problem as spelling is adjusted according to the market.

Metre/meter is a fairly consistent difference, but there are a few inconsistencies in British spelling that drive me mad, like ise/ize endings: the Brits use both and have done so for years. But if I dare use -ize I get shouted at for American spelling....

[unclegarf]

I'm too stubborn to use anything but U K English. As long as my loptap keeps on the U K version, I'll stick with it. I've enough issues with computers as it is, having been suffering the nightmare which is the submissions for being accepted on my upcoming art degree course. The good news is that I can skip the foundation year and just do the BA with hons bit. Not bad for just sending them a bunch of photos of my paintings. Perhaps I have a modicum of talent after all. I suppose these days with people throwing tins of paint on a wall and calling art, anyone who can copy the Mona Lisa must be considered weird. It is part of our constitution that we are eccentric

[Ria Stone]

Aug 21, 2019 23:28:40 GMT -8 chelsfield said:

As someone fluent in both American and British English (an American in Britain for over 20 years), I'd say it's perfectly fine to use British spelling as long as you are consistent with it throughout the book. Of course, a good number of readers from other countries will be fine with it as well. And if a majority of your readers are from those countries then no problem. But if a majority are American, or if you want to take a shot at that larger market, then probably best to go with American spelling. There will be quite a few who have no problem with British, but then there might be a fair few who do. With print books this is not generally a problem as spelling is adjusted according to the market.

Metre/meter is a fairly consistent difference, but there are a few inconsistencies in British spelling that drive me mad, like ise/ize endings: the Brits use both and have done so for years. But if I dare use -ize I get shouted at for American spelling....

Not knowing the setting for the story, British English may add "atmosphere."

[chelsfield]

Great point, Ria. I remember going through Jonathan Gash crime novels (about antiques dealer, Lovejoy. A tv series was based on them) when I lived in the US and loving the British slang. I seem to reply something about  crooked or bent eye, might be misremembering...