As I mentioned before, I found a typo in the book. It was a single one (as far as I know). I could have just ignored it and just chalked it up to a little mistake, there were plenty in almost all of the books I have on my shelf.

I didn't. In fact, I decided to use the mistake as a way of doing a couple things and getting the book updated both in ebook and print form.

The Typo

The flat-out bug was a typo in chapter 3. I frequently use auto-correct when I type. This was very important with the accented names like “Rutejìmo”. To avoid spending my type with (too) many accents in the clipboard, I set it up so I can type “Rute” and it would expand into his full name.

However, I missed one. In the last version, there was a “shimu dépa” which should have been “shimusogo dépa”.

Naturally I fixed this.

Italics

One of the things I thought I did, but apparently missed was italics in the book. I use a couple Miwāfu words in the book. In specific: dépa, tazágu, and rikunámi. Convention usually says I should italicize them, but I must have missed that step. So, I corrected it.

Ligatures

This was one that made me sad, but I can understand why. When I originally printed it, I went with old-style ligatures because of the rough time period of the book in relation to when those ligatures were popular.

However, I had a lot of complaints about them. I thought it added character, but it hit the threshold that I should just change it. So, when I rebuilt the PDF, I turned off all those lovely ligatures. The ebook version never had them, but now the print doesn't either.

Ingram

Finally, I decided to switch distributors from Lulu who I have used for almost a decade to Ingram. The main reason came from an email about author signings for ICON and two authors I respect and are a little further up the writing ladder than me (Allison Moon and Ksenia Anske).

The biggest reason for Ingram is the ability to return a book. Barnes and Nobel won't really touch a book without the ability to return and Lulu doesn't it. However, Ingram does and it is the same distribution network that Lulu uses. They are more expensive but it gives me a better chance of getting into bookstores.

At the moment, the Lulu book has been “retired” and the Ingram one is being distributed. Same cover but a different ISBN.

Semantic Versioning

I'm pretty obsessed with semantic versioning. After the last round of edits, I updated the book to version 1.1.0 but I had to indicate there is a new version.

It took me a bit to figure it out. If I was just fixing the typos, it would have been 1.1.1, a patch. However, I feel that adding the italics and removing the ligatures isn't a breaking change (which would have been 2.0.0) but it wasn't a patch. So, the new version is 1.2.0.

I'm hoping to never have a book get to 2.0.0, since I mostly consider that doing a “Lucas” with my books. I suspect I would if I have to retcon, but I'm also going to be very honest about those changes. Which is why I created a versions page on the landing that tells everyone the changes I made to the book.

I also put the version on the legal page, so its easy to figure out if you have the latest. And then look at the versions to see if you really want the latest.

Just as a note, I'll “upgrade” a book for you, ebook or print, to the latest version for free. Just contact me and we'll talk.

Also, if you have a print version and want the ebook, just drop me a line.