Many of my friends have come to me since hearing of me publishing my first book and have told me that they too want to write a book. I thought I would write done some of the things that I have learned in this process to help others who will be doing the same thing soon. Here’s a little bit about my process in writing and publishing my first book along with some tips that will hopefully be helpful to you in your journey.
Get Writing
Thinking of writing a book is an overwhelming concept when you think of it as a whole. If you take it section by section it’s more manageable. I highly suggest setting aside time each week to write. It doesn’t matter what you write, just make it a habit that you dedicate time to and get your creative writing juices flowing. I had been stuck, crippled with writer’s block after so long and then I read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and started doing some of the weekly exercises in there to help unleash my creative juices. By writing 3 pages in my journal each day, thoughts, prayers, complaints, whatever, helped me get into a habit and get rid of all the concerns in my head that hold back creativity. By having an artist date once a week where I do something creative all by myself whether that be paint a picture, put together a collage, go to an art gallery, learn a dance, play guitar, it helped me to sow into my life in other creative areas. A couple times I wrote one random line on the top of a page (“the green monster”) and then let my words flow and I ended up writing two children’s short stories from those times. It was nice to get away from the towering project of Silver to Gold that had been looming over me for almost 7 years by that point. Un-engaging and then re-engaging helped me a lot.
Practically speaking, I encourage you to take one chapter, one section at a time. Set realistic deadlines or else you will never finish. You can work backwards in setting your goals by figuring out when you want to have you release party of the book to when the manuscript draft needs to be finished to each chapter drafted and so on.
Perfectionism is the Enemy
I really don’t think your book should have to take 7 years as mine did. Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird helped me to understand when enough is enough, when it’s time to finish and move on. She writes about how an author can know when they are finished with the book. She says that “perfection is the voice of the oppressor” and she goes into a good analogy of trying to get all of an octopus’ legs in the right place at the same time, the legs being the plot, dialogue, setting, etc, then right when you think everything’s set, another leg flops out of order. Then she goes on to say that you know you are done when, even though you know the manuscript is not perfect, that you have absolutely “no steam left in the pressure cooker” and you know it is time to move onto something else (93-94).
If I didn’t finish and publish my book, even though I know it can always be better in one way or another, it would have killed me! There’s other things in my life that I need to move on towards, other books I need to write but I needed to finish Silver to Gold before I could fully move on and move forward. I highly encourage you to set a goal, a timeline and move towards it.
Semantics
Writing is a true craft that can be learned. I had my basic story and I knew what I wanted to say but I had none of the tools to know how to add meat to the bones, to make dialogue sound real, develop characters. There are lots of good books that can help you refine your basic writing skills. For fiction I found the The Art and Craft of Story Telling by Nancy Lamb helpful as an overall how to structure and develop dialogue, character, etc. I am completely sold on Hooked by Les Edgerton for creative ideas in how to refine the beginning of your story. There are even interviews by literary agents, editors, and publishers in the end of the book to know what specifics they are looking for when reviewing a manuscript. These and other resources like writing groups or networks on line are great places to get advice.
Feedback
Initially, I would pick no more than 3 people to help give you consistent feedback on your writing. This group of 3 should be diverse and should be people who are for you, who want to see you succeed, who can give you the time you need, and who can also give you honest and constructive feedback. A manageable way to make it easy for these to help you is by refining your chapter and then giving them one chapter at a time to look over and give you feedback on. Ask them specific questions to look for problem areas you have identified. If you give someone the whole draft of your book to read and get back to you, they might be overwhelmed. Small junks keep them from becoming burnt out.
Get them to look at big picture stuff first, more globally and then as you are nearer to the end, focus in on who can do more in depth and detailed copy editing and sentence structure refinement.
Professionals
If this book is truly your “baby,” I would suggest that after you have got the draft as great as you can get it with the help of your feedback friends, that you do two things. Get a manuscript evaluation of the story to give you an idea of any holes or problem areas you hadn’t seen before. After reintegrating all the new changes and getting feedback and making the draft as near complete as possible, I would hire a professional editor to help do the final edit. There are several different types of edits one can do. There is a content edit and a line edit. Content is an overall feel and the line edit is grammar, punctuation, more detailed help. Content editing comes before the final line, or copy, edits. Determine which ones you need and look for your editor accordingly. Some editors will do both.
There are several services out there where you can receive a free sample edit of your work before investing money in the editor. I high recommend doing this before you enlist an editor or else you can loose lots of money and not be satisfied with the final result. This can be done in the early stages of writing, Once you have a chapter that is polished off, you can submit it to different editing agencies and the editors interested will do a sample edit of your chapter for free as well as give you a quote for the whole project. This enables you to be able to find the right person who sees the vision and has the skills to refine your manuscript to your liking so you know who to choose when you're ready. A couple of these agencies are book-editing.com and pronovelediting.com. Overspending time in reading the final draft and having others read as well before submitting for publishing will eliminate extra fees for having grammar mistakes and other errors once its already sent for print. Once you have your final edit returned and you revise it, you are ready to move forward toward publishing.
Endorsements
Plan ahead to find endorsements that will help with your target market and audience. Send them the best copy you have. I ended up sending people unfinished drafts of my work just so I could hear back from them in time but this is not ideal. You want to give them your best possible draft and give them at least a month to read and get back to you.
Decide whether you want to go with a traditional publisher or if you want to self-publish
I followed the Wayne Jacobsen’s advice in an article describing the process he went through in relation to the book The Shack . From this advice, I have decided to start my own publishing company and sell 2,000 copies on my own before connecting with a formal publisher. There are lots of reasons why I chose this but that’s for another time or you can read the article for more information.
Self-Publishing
Invest the little extra to buy your own ISBN number because then you will have all the rights to your book and any printers can not have exclusive rights that tie your book to their ISBN. Many places offer a free ISBN to you but the only problem is that it will tie your book to their company.
Submit your best and final draft. Spend the most time proofing the draft that you will be submitting for publishing. Have others help you. Eliminate all unnecessary errors. Pretend like what you turn in will be your actual book. If you spend your time getting that draft great, you will avoid unnecessary correction fees later on. Then when they return the formatted version to you, spent your time proofing and having others help you proof for any errors they have made. Once it looks like the best, approve it and off you go.
For book covers, I decided to go with a design company and hire them. The nice thing about that was that any last minute corrections or minor changes didn’t incur extra charges because they were very graceful although most publishing firms will charge you per change, even if it’s minor.
Time Lines
To avoid higher rush fees, realize it will take a good 8 weeks + most of the time to do the whole formatting process. Once you have your print ready files and cover prepared, print time plus shipping is usually only around 2 weeks but verify this through whatever company you choose to go through. I prefer companies that have a 24 hour email response time and a contact person I can call with any concerns.
Marketing and Pre-Sales
I focused on marketing before I had even finalized my book. I highly encourage you to network but to spend the majority of your time and energy on completing the manuscript and then begin building into marketing.
I sold over 300 books before my book was even printed and released through Pre-Sales. My strategy was to have people buy multiple copies because the way that most people read and buy books is by word of mouth. So if I have friends who know me and believe in my as my ambassadors to people I might not necessarily be able to reach, then my book is hitting a more diverse crowd. I sold through personal contact as well as through my website. The moment I determined the page number of my book, I could determine the retail price and thus I started presales then. I also printed 2,000 copies of a rough draft of Silver to Gold and passed them out for free in 2003 so many people had already been aware of this project and expectant. More on marketing in the future when I learn more myself!
Books that helped me in my writing process:
The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron
This book helped me break out of my writer’s block and gave me activities to do to help me get the writing juices flowing again.
The Art and Craft of Storytelling by Nancy Lamb
This is a great basic overview for fiction writers who might be new to writing in this genre.
Hooked: Write fiction that grabs readers at page one and never lets them go by Les Edgerton
Besides really liking the cover design of this book, it’s a whole book written on the fact that if you don’t hook people in the very beginning of your story, they won’t make it to the end. There’s good question and answer section in the back to learn more of what literary agents, publishers, and others in the industry are looking for when they receive a manuscript on their desk.
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
This is part instructional but mostly reflections on the writing process by the author herself.
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
This is an excellent book when thinking though some ideas of how to market successfully.
I hope that my process in writing my first book will help support you to finish and publish your first book as well. I would love to hear from you if this has helped in any way. Good luck and keep writing!
UPDATE November 2011: I have had tons of people coming to me for advice in helping set up their books so if you would like to learn how to set up self-publishing for the cheapest way possible where you can also make 40%-80% royalties on every book sold, I can help you HERE.
UPDATE November 2011: I have had tons of people coming to me for advice in helping set up their books so if you would like to learn how to set up self-publishing for the cheapest way possible where you can also make 40%-80% royalties on every book sold, I can help you HERE.
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