William Dye to Chad Leito
Hello,
My name is Chad Leito. Welcome to my website! As you may be aware, I formerly published under the pen name ‘William Dye.’ I thought the name was catchy, and I saw it as desirable to keep my identity separate from my writing. But now, for reasons that I will list, I believe that it would be advantageous to use my real name, Chad Leito. Reason number 1: It is easier to market with my actual name. I find that if I tell people about my work, it is sometimes difficult to remember my pen name. This is one reason why I have chosen to drop it. Reason number 2: I like my real name. Reason number 3: I feel as though I haven’t been as proactive about marketing in the past as I would have liked. This has led me to the desire to start over. I would like to develop new habits in my publishing life, and see changing my name as a great opportunity to signal this. Reason number 4: Real names promote transparency. There will be two sub-points attached to this point. Sub-point 1: I personally enjoy feeling as though I know artists. Pen names are another barrier blocking this goal. Sub-point 2 (arguably the most important warrant I will give): I would like to start using 100% of my ebook earnings to support a charity. I will talk about reasons for this at another time, but for now, I will focus on why changing author name to my genuine name is beneficial. One of the heaviest predictors of success for any person or organization that is trying to give to charity is that they be transparent. My vision is that I will write a check (or echeck, or pay via a card of some kind) for my ebook earnings and give that to charity every month. In promoting transparency, I will post proof of my earnings and the receipt from the charity online in one-month intervals. I believe that people will view the process as more genuine if my actual name is on all of the documents. This will encourage people to spread the word, advocating a unique way to give.
My name is Chad Leito. Welcome to my website! As you may be aware, I formerly published under the pen name ‘William Dye.’ I thought the name was catchy, and I saw it as desirable to keep my identity separate from my writing. But now, for reasons that I will list, I believe that it would be advantageous to use my real name, Chad Leito. Reason number 1: It is easier to market with my actual name. I find that if I tell people about my work, it is sometimes difficult to remember my pen name. This is one reason why I have chosen to drop it. Reason number 2: I like my real name. Reason number 3: I feel as though I haven’t been as proactive about marketing in the past as I would have liked. This has led me to the desire to start over. I would like to develop new habits in my publishing life, and see changing my name as a great opportunity to signal this. Reason number 4: Real names promote transparency. There will be two sub-points attached to this point. Sub-point 1: I personally enjoy feeling as though I know artists. Pen names are another barrier blocking this goal. Sub-point 2 (arguably the most important warrant I will give): I would like to start using 100% of my ebook earnings to support a charity. I will talk about reasons for this at another time, but for now, I will focus on why changing author name to my genuine name is beneficial. One of the heaviest predictors of success for any person or organization that is trying to give to charity is that they be transparent. My vision is that I will write a check (or echeck, or pay via a card of some kind) for my ebook earnings and give that to charity every month. In promoting transparency, I will post proof of my earnings and the receipt from the charity online in one-month intervals. I believe that people will view the process as more genuine if my actual name is on all of the documents. This will encourage people to spread the word, advocating a unique way to give.
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Thanks for your comment! I don't know what the issue could be with the blog post comment. I assure you, I didn't delete it. I'm sorry that that content is lost.First off--just so that there are no misunderstandings--only proceeds through April 2014 went to MSF. I'm keeping the money now as I'm trying to make a career of writing.
Secondly--I'd love to have your help with editing. Email me at wleito@yahoo.com or chadleito@yahoo.com. I'm sorry that you found the editing sub par. I have added an additional person to help edit my next book (The Baggers Trilogy: Book 1) and hope that future readers of my work won't run into the same problem as you did. I'd love to have you on board to help, if you're willing.
Sincerely,
Chad Leito
Id also like to note that I did not pay Tom. I paid people to edit book 1 and Tom offered his services for free (though he has done a much better job than the editors I paid).Chad
This is not apropos of this post, but of my reading your ACADEMY books. I was asked to review them for Amazon, but I thought I'd write to you first, because of what I will be compelled to say.
I liked both ACADEMY books a lot. They are truly fascinating and conceived with great imagination. And they are well and convincingly written, so I am looking forward to the sequels.
BUT
they are so littered with errors (grammatical and orthographic) that they are painful to read. I know you had this Tom correct your second book, but it's just as bad. It's so bad, actually, that when I wanted to buy your MUNGUS and immediately saw the same mistakes, I changed my mind, because I just couldn't face more of the same.
I'll just mention a few things off the top of my head:
'throughout' is not the same as 'through' and 'whenever' is not the same as 'when'.
You mix up 'vile' and 'vial', 'lose' and 'loose', 'flair' and 'flare' (trusting your spelling checker, I assume. But spelling checkers are for misprints; they are no cure for bad or sloppy spelling).
You seem to have no idea of the rule of congruity of tense (which demands that the verb tense is (normally) the same in both main clause and sub-clause). For example: 'He doesn't know that the building HAS been damaged' as against 'He didn't know that the building HAD been damaged.' To mix these tenses is not only wrong, but it grates enormously on a sensitive grammatical 'ear'.
When 'he' or 'she' or any other personal pronoun functions as the object (of a verb or of a preposition), you have to use their object forms: 'him' and 'her'. So something like 'She stumbled against he and Asa' is just wrong.
I assume that none-too-literate readers won't mind (or even notice) such mistakes, but I assure you that for more grammatically attuned people they actually spoil much of the pleasure of reading your books. No one minds the occasional error or omission, but a continuous stream of makes you wonder: is the author incapable of writing proper English, does he give a damn, or is he just a sloppy bastard.
I noticed very few mistakes in your blog posts (except for the unavoidable 'whenever' (I suggest you start using 'when' everywhere from now; 'when' is correct 90 per cent of the time; 'whenever' is wrong 90 per cent of the time. 'Whenever' means: on one of many occasions, so 'Whenever (Asa's) mother was dying...' (ACADEMY 2) is patent nonsense), so maybe they start creeping in when you're in author mode and overreach yourself.
I read in one of your posts that you spent 500 dollars on proofreading. Even assuming that the proofreader (like Tom) weeded out many errors, I can still assure you that it was 500 dollars wasted, because no educated reader would believe that either ACADEMY 1 or ACADEMY 2 had been proofread at all.
I also read that you have promised to donate part of your earnings as an author to the charity 'Doctors without Frontiers', which is a very praise-worthy idea. I would like to contribute to this by offering you my services as a proofreader for free (allowing you to donate the next 500 dollars to the charity) for your next ACADEMY books. I wouldn't even mind proofreading the first two books retrospectively (if you give me time; and preferably an editable copy), because they are, and pardon my choice of words, an abomination. Grammatically and orthographically speaking, of course.
I am sorry if I have sounded altogether too negative, so I will finish by reiterating that I liked the ACADEMY books immensely. If this were not the case, I would not have bothered writing to you or offering you my help.
All the best,
Piet Verhagen