The way I teach it, you're probably doing just fine for now.
If you look at your left hand, you'll notice that it's designed to face you when you open your hand, and that it takes a bit of effort (not a lot, but certainly some) to turn it away from you over your left shoulder.
My teaching technique is to have the student adapt the bass to his/her hand, pushing the neck UP and OUT with the left thumb. This feels a little weird, and also means that you'll be pushing the strings down with a different part of your finger than you thought you should be, but that also speaks to the way your hand is designed...
...if you take at look at your left hand while you're squeezing that tennis ball (you ARE squeezing a tennis ball right now, aren't you? Good.), you'll notice that your fingertips aren't all facing you directly. Your index and pinky should be aiming the corners of the nail at you, while your middle and ring fingers are pretty much face-on. This is a good representation of the location of the pressure points on your fretting hand.
I draw dots on my student's fingers and teach them to touch the dot to the string, and then put their pressure through the dot. Again, index and pinky, outside corners; middle and ring, center. (My middle finger tends to lean to the left; YMMV.)
Something else to consider: your hand may not be built like everyone else's. There will be subtle changes you'll have to make when adapting a technique concept. This is OKAY; largely the techniques you'll hear about are generalized, and must be adapted to the player. There is no "good" and "bad" technique; there's only "efficient" and "inefficient".
And as far as octaves go, no reason to play them 1-3 or 2-4 if you don't need to. I play octaves 1-4 even higher up the neck if it suits me (and sometimes it does).
I'm sure many here won't agree with my method, but it works well for my students. Again, if it works for you, it's a good technique simply BECAUSE it works for you.
But I'm happy to help as much as I can on TB.
