FINISHING A NOVEL

Even though this is the fifth time I’ve finished this same novel, the tremendous pleasure and satisfaction of a job completed still courses through my veins.  If you’ve been reading since the beginning, you know FIRST TENTATIVE STEPS has undergone several revisions.  The first two were self-imposed.  I wanted to do the full edit of the novel and make sure it was as free of typographical errors as possible. Every time you believe you are done, the writing cycle starts again.

The third rewrite came from getting feedback from a Structural Editor.  She found issues and I corrected them – at least I thought I did.  The fourth revision was forced because of a rejection of the novel.  It was too long, the hook was weak among other issues including it was too long.

I took on the fifth, and what I hope is the final rewrite.  More than twenty thousand words came out.  The plot was strengthened, the hook was re-developed, and the pacing was vastly improved.

BETA READERS

Of the five beta readers, one is a college student, one is in their mid-twenties, and the three others are between forty and fifty-nine.  They all enjoyed the novel.  It was fast paced, it had good drama, and good erotic scenes. 

I’m now confident – I was the last time by the way – that the novel is ready for prime time!

QUERIES TO THE PUBLISHERS

If possible, I still want to go the traditional publishing way.  I don’t have a great reason.  I continue to do the research on self-publishing, and it’s time consuming, foreign to me, but all in all it is not hard.  It just takes time, and trial-and-error till I figure out the Marketing of a new book.  I think I rather spend time writing new books, and not so much time learning how to market my previous work. Even when it comes to querying publishers, to the writer, the writing cycle starts again.

There, I think that sums up my reasoning.  I’m keeping my options open.  Today I commissioned a full cover and a KDP cover for the book.  

QUERIES SENT TO FAMILY DRAMA, EROTIC ROMANCE PUBLISHERS.

Those who know me, and those who’ve worked with me, know I have little natural patience.  The query process takes time.  They have to get to it, then they have to read it and pitch it internally and then decide.  Each step requires scheduling various people’s meeting time, and that pushes things out weeks upon weeks. 

None of the publishers like to have simultaneous submittals, so we – the authors – have to send the email, hope to get a response that asks for the full manuscript (DONE and DONE by the way) and then you must wait till they go through their process.  Having researched the work it takes to properly market a book, the time is the greatest expense, and the least available resource.  Reading the novel is the easy part.  The hard work for them comes later.

WHAT IF I SELF PUBLISH?

If I look at self-publishing, there is one benefit.  I control the schedule. I’m sold on my own book, so I don’t have to sell myself again.  See, for me that’s a problem.  I’m not unbiased in this business decision.  Yes, I did use the word business.  Writing is a business.  Publishing is a business.  As is Editing, and cover creation, and social media advertisements and marketing.  It all takes time. It cannot be sent off to an automation process and out comes a best seller.

Overnight success occasionally happens, but it is always after months, years and decades of work.  My own writing journey started 38-years ago.  I took 18 years off, and 20 years ago I started up again.  My first novel started at the end of 2019 and here I am two years later: Still trying to publish it.

THE CREATIVITY CIRCLE

The work is never done.  The thing I’ve learned over the last two years is that you’re never done.  You have to write. You must edit. You must write again and after a few of those loops, you submit to an publisher.  You’re not done there.  You have to do rewrites for them, and you have to start working on the next book.

The cycle, to me is: Start, Work, Edit, re-start until you query.  Then you query, edit, re-query and continue the two circles till you publish.  In between, start the next book (stand alone, or in the series).  The more trips around the two cycles the more likely to be successful you’re going to be – eventually. In short (or maybe in a long winded form), you have to let the writing cycle start again without losing patience.

Think of it as constantly having two ride one of two Ferris wheels.  You get off the production wheel, and you get on the sales wheel (querying is a sales job, don’t underestimate it).  When you’re done, you jump back to the other, over and over, sometimes several re-starts on the same Ferris Wheel.