The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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4:59pm on Thursday, 2nd June, 2011:
Anecdote
I needed someone to proof-read the children's book I'm preparing to put on the Kindle store, having read in four times myself in the space of two weeks and making the same number of changes after each one. I reasoned that if someone else read it, I wouldn't be tempted to rewrite pieces and then have to re-read it to make sure it still made sense.
At first I asked my wife, but once she started with a string of excuses ("It's too heavy"; no it's not. "It won't fit in my bag"; yes it will) I finally wrung it out of her that she wasn't in the mood. I mentioned this to my mother, who volunteered to proof-read it instead. Today, I therefore loaned her my Kindle.
OK, so as I've mentioned before my mother is completely and utterly untechnical. I gave it to her, showed her how to switch it on (slide a slider), showed her how to switch it off (slide and hold the slider), showed her how to move between pages (buttons on the side) and showed her what to do if she pressed the wrong button by accident (press the "back" button). Within 30 seconds, she had it in a mode I've never seen it in before — and this was just from handling it. She tried to switch it off by pressing the slider, and when that didn't work she tried pressing it really hard. When, under my coaching, she switched it back on, she read a bit and then put it into sleep mode while trying to turn a page. Gawd knows if I'm going to get it back in a functioning state.
This isn't an age thing, she's always been like that.
I should have written down some instructions...
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Copyright © 2011 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).