Last year I finished writing my novella in four months time. I was so lucky that I had a story I wanted to tell. I did my homework on how to write a romance novel and applied what worked for me. I only encountered a few days when life or my brain got in the way of my morning writing routine. As I find myself embarking on the behind the scenes jobs to get a book toward publication. I found that writing the book was the easy part. This is what I have learned so far and how I am doing on these steps to being a published author.
Revision and editing
I had given myself a month off after writing the book. Sometime away from the story and a much needed break. I then plunged head first into revision work and bumped my head on the bottom of the pool. A small meltdown ensued and I dropped the project for months while I tore myself apart for being a fool. At the start of the new year I gathered my courage and made a plan. As it turned out it was a awesome plan and I wrote about the process on Meeting the Editing Fairy. I am happy to tell everyone that I am three quarters of the way with my revision work.
Beta readers
I knew I needed another set of eyes. I have questions about; the main characters, the relationships in the book, and most important of all the twist ending. Lucky for me I am a member of some amazing groups on social media and learned about beta readers. So I need to find beta readers. Come up with incentive for them to do the job. Write a contract to protect my work, find a way to get the story to them and what questions I have for the novella. This has been my recent journey. I started with the most popular social media platform. Made a group connected to my author page. I have also made a form contract in Google docs. If you would like to learn how I did this please leave a comment. I will be happy to do a post on how to set yourself up for beta readers.
Finding an editor
I have looked into a few editors and will start narrowing down the search while I work on the 3rd draft of the book. I will share more on this part of the journey later this year.
Background author branding work
Branding is hard work and takes up a lot of my time. I have the blog, social media, art for the social media, and plans for more projects that relate to my work. I work on this part of the job on average 10 hours a week.
Funding promotional materials, setting up book events and launch
I am looking into options for funding this project. From crowd-sourcing, to side hustles like Instacart. It takes quite a bit of money to be a self-published author. I also want to do something nice for all my beta reader team.
Formatting the book for eBook platforms
We have to drag out the Mac and I have to learn to format books for iBooks, Kindle, Nook, and Play Books. I will be working on this research while the editor is doing their walk through of the book. So more on this journey later this year.
Thank you for taking this walk with me. If you would like to learn how I setup my beta reader materials. Let me know in the comments below and I will make that a blog post or a tutorial. If you are an editor or know someone who is please let me know in the comments. I would love to make the best choice for my little novella. If you would like to donate a little towards promotional items? Please click on the donate button on the contact me page. If you would like to donate your time, I am looking for more beta readers. Go to my Facebook author page and click to join the group. See you next week.
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