Too many steps. soak, then paper towels, then soil. Too much touching and contamination risks, especially if he taproot is exposed. My preferred method. Soak the seeds in water until they sink when they are submerged (initially they will float back to the top when you push them down). Leave them in a maximum of 24 hours, they should all be sinking by then any way. I do use a heating mat also. Take 16 oz keg party cups and drill 4 holes around the edges as close to the bottom as possible. Fill with soil or soiless medium (I use promix bx w/ extra perlite). Soak the medium and let it drain out a bit. Leave some room at the top of the cup for the sprout to emerge. About an inch or so should do. Plant the seed about 2-3x the width of the seed deep touching it as little as possible. A bamboo skewer is a good tool for this. Cover the cups with plastic wrap and secure with a rubber band. Make a cup with just watered medium and put the thermostat for your heating pad in that. I keep the temp at 75 F. The seeds should sprout within 4-5 days, I've had some strains do it in 24 hours. When you see a sprout remove the plastic and start up your light (flourescent preferred) or you can turn on your light from the start it doesn't really matter. I recently started 21 seeds using this method (six different strains) and 20 of them sprouted and are doing well so far. Only one did no germ at all and I just removed it after about 14 days. The one drawback to this method that you can't see if the seed germed or not but pretty minor if you ask me. Bonus to this method is that the first transplant is easy with minimal root damage, just carefully cut away the cup and slide the rootball out. IMO paper towel is an extra step and an unnecessary contamination risk. By all means if your method works for you then great, but maybe you want to try it this way. If you are still unclear on his method youtube Jason Wilcox germination, that's where I learned this method.