Finish My Book and Publish

[Magik]

I'm done editing, so the book is essentially finished. Now I just need to get everything formatted, write a description, and fire away. I don't know how long this part of the process takes, but I may be able to publish sometime next week, or it may be the week after.

My plan is to release the book on a Tuesday with all the other new releases and sell at .99 until the following Monday, then go up to normal price. I'm not sure where normal price will be yet, probably either $2.99, $3.99, or $4.99. An exciting time though indeed.

I'm 10K words into the next one, so that's the next order of business.

 

[Magik]

Finished the story yesterday, a milestone indeed, but now on to the next hurdle. Now, I'm moving into self-editing. I'm printing out each chapter, and reading it as if I were a reader. Anything that seems odd, or out of place, or that needs to change, I will change. This is the part where it turns into a book. I've set a target date to be finished by June 1. I'm still on the fence about hiring an editor. About to start firing off some emails, get some quotes/time frames on this. Should be getting a cover made sometime this month too. Exciting stuff. Continuing to push...

 

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[Rem]

I am tellin' ya, use @AubreyRose for the book cover. She'll work with you... in ENGLISH even, and if you aren't happy the first time, she'll work to fix it. She is familiar with CreateSpace and the specs and knows what needs to be done. 5 of her covers (I think it's 5) landed on the New York Times Bestseller list. I don't think she'll let you down. If I am wrong you can hunt me down!

 

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[Magik]

Just thinking out loud, do you think you might get better some designs if you waited a couple days before throwing in the towel? I'm half-thinking that good designs might take a little longer, so hopefully your choices would improve.

It turns out that you were right about this. I woke up today and checked, and a guy had uploaded 7 different designs all based around the same theme/concept (just using different colors, fonts, etc). They are impressive to say the least. He took my initial concepts (which were very basic and straight-forward), combined them with artistic elements, and really surprised me. He took it a direction I hadn't envisioned. One of my characters is Puerto-Rican, and he somehow created a font that is based on Puerto Rican cartel lettering, which looks really cool and I would never have thought of it. I'm going to suggest a few enhancements and minor tweaks, which he's open to.

We'll see what else comes through. I'm doubting anybody is going to top this guy's work, but you never know. It looks like I've been the forum's 99Designs guinea pig.

 

[Lex DeVille]

I say get it out there and you can change the end later if needed.

First see how it does with the current ending. Maybe it will work just fine.

If you build a website you can even use another ending as a promotional idea for signing up on your mailing list.

"Subscribe today and get instant access to the never before published secret ending!"

 

[Magik]

The book is currently published on Kobo, Nook, and Google Play. Amazon should go live later today. Going to get it on ibooks once they get their shit together and approve my tax info (there's a reason why Apple is in 5th place). Anyway, Amazon will obviously be the most important, so most of my focus will be there. It may prove to be a mistake to be published everywhere, but giving Amazon exclusivity makes me nervous. We'll see, I can always course correct. Once my book goes live there, I'm going to make sure it gets put in the correct categories. One of the categories, contemporary fiction, isn't a choice for some reason so I'm going to email them and get them to put it there, but the other (coming of age) should work immediately.

The formatting was a giant pain in the a$$, partially because of mistakes I made, but also because it's just a pain in the a$$. Next time I shouldn't have as many problems.

Somehow, all of this feels very anti-climactic for me, which it shouldn't. I started this book in 2008, and took my sweet time (until this year) getting it done for various reasons. When I was looking at the publish button, part of me couldn't believe I actually finished it and was taking it to market, so it is a milestone for me. My expectations are quite low for it though. Who knows, maybe I'll be surprised. There are some breakout, crossover novels that come out of the contemporary fiction space, so who knows. The next one will be finished before the end of the year, I'm not going to drag my feet like I did for the last one.

The next steps:

-Start up my Twitter drip marketing experiment. One tweet per hour with a quote from the book, and a link to it. Try to start moving the needle
-Considering contacting some blogs/podcasters, but this may prove futile given that I only have one book out.
-Research doing a Kickstarter campaign. HUGE opportunities on Kickstarter, as has been proven by some fellow Fastlaners lately. I have a goal to raise $5,000 for a print run, which is a modest amount. Not impossible at all either, but it's all about presentation. Will need to make some videos for it.
-Continue working on my next book (currently at 13,000 words). I see this one having greater potential than the one I just published, because of the genre and it will be more well written.

All very exciting, but also daunting as well.

 

[Magik]

A little backstory:

I grew up in a small town called Oxford, MS. If it sounds familiar to you, that's because William Faulkner lived there and wrote his books there. There was also this lawyer guy from Southaven who moved there in the 80's named Grisham (I forget his first name), who also wrote these law books. Apparently, a few people bought them (I wonder what happened to that guy?)

In all seriousness though, I remember when John Grisham released A Time To Kill in the late 80's. On a national level, it did nothing. Of course it sold well at the local book store, but nothing nationally. Then he put out The Firm in 1991 and it exploded, I mean exploded. From a close distance (not an inside view), I watched an unknown author go from very few book sales to having the #1 selling book in the country.

Other authors have lived there at one time or another: Barry Hannah, Willie Morris, Richard Ford, Larry Brown, Donna Tartt. My mom apparently works with some lady who wrote a best seller and sold the film rights (I may see if she can help me get an agent). I wonder how much influence I picked up by living in a writing town? If I had grown up in another place, would I still have a drive to write? I have no idea. I can tell you that the number one thing that published authors have in common is they start a book and do whatever it takes to make it publishable. They finish it and rewrite it and have it edited. My writing process will be this from now on.

Anyway, I started writing poetry when I was 14 and wrote it throughout my teens. I have hundreds of these poems. Some of them suck, some of them are good. I then started to write songs but didn't understand music well enough and abandoned that. I tried writing a screenplay, but screenplays are very structured and very plot driven and I couldn't adapt to that, which led me to fiction writing. I finally found the medium that allowed me to be abstract enough while still having enough structure, and fiction is more character driven (which appeals to me more).

In some ways, I view writing as a curse. Writers don't have much of a choice. That statement is hard to understand for someone who is not a writer. It's a lonely business full of isolation, self-doubt, and frustration. However, when the stars align, it can also be the greatest feeling in the world. The task is to minimize the downside and maximize the upside.

I'm not exactly sure what my end goal is with this book, or the next one, other than publish in some form. I could self-publish as an ebook, I could try to traditionally publish it in print form and maintain the ebook rights (most ideal, IMO), or just go the traditional route. I don't know, I'll deal with that once I finish. Finish is a big word for me.

 

[Magik]

BUMPING this thread. I've gotten back on track. I quit writing for a while to chase an idea (to chase money really). I'm committing myself to finishing this book.

My plan has become more clear to me. My goal is twofold: to write and to help other writers. After I finish this book, and it passes through editing, I will launch a few websites. One will be my main author site, and another will be a site of some sort to help writers deal with all of the challenges that come with being a writer. The goal here is to build up an email list, a basic sales funnel. Then, with every book launch, I will send out an email blast. I also plan on launching products for writers that help them and solve problems, though we are not there yet.

As far as writing goes, I plan to self-publish. I can't believe I was even on the fence about that when I first started this thread. I plan to release a lot of short stories, since they are easier for me to write and I can finish them quicker. I should be able to launch a few short stories per month at .99 each, and start building up some income. My novel will sell for 2.99. Then I will work on my second book of course.

I have no idea how all of this will end up, no clue. I know that I have tried many different businesses over the years, and almost always I was chasing money. I wasn't committed to the process. I have accepted that writing is my space, both the act of self-publishing and later, developing products of some sort to help writers overcome their obstacles.

Currently I'm at 32,000 words. It's still looking like I'll hit around 50,000-60,000.

 

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[Magik]

About 3/4 done with editing. Once done, I will do a read through to make sure I didn't miss anything, or nothing weird pops out, then we'll be good. I still need to figure out the cover though. Getting closer though, which is good.

 

[Magik]

Update Time: I'm approaching the finish line. I did a round of edits, then did another read through and fixed some typos and cleaned up a few more things. I am going to adjust a few more things with the last few chapters, I'm not fully satisfied with the ending. Once I do that, the book is finished.

A few other things:

-The book cover is in a contest at 99 Designs that just launched today. I'll know a week from now if I have a winner. If I don't, that will slow the process down.

-I will be putting together all of the book funnels soon. Right now, I'm looking at author website, publishing company website (I have future plans for it), Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, GoodReads, and a Tumblr Blog of some sort. I may blog on Tumblr and my author site, going with two different themes, but I'm not sure on that yet.

-I am considering doing a Kickstarter campaign. Fiction writers typically don't pull much on there, but so what? It can't hurt anything. My book falls under contemporary fiction, and those books seem to do okay on there. Of course, I have to have a compelling offer and I don't know what that will be yet. Usually you have to offer a physical book. I need to do some research on this.

-I am debating on whether I should go the KDP select route, which means Amazon exclusivity for the first 90 days, or to launch everywhere. I'm guessing that Amazon will account for at least 80% of sales anyway. Offering the book free for 5 days would be valuable, especially if I run a Kickstarter, but I worry about control issues. Having your book everywhere, along with a print book, also seems to look more professional since that's how all the major books are launched. I have to think more on all of this.

Once I'm able to move past editing/rewrites and I have a book cover, I'll move quickly on all the other stuff. I have past experience building blogs and websites, so that will move fast. Most likely, the book will launch in July. I'm aiming high right out of the gate. Perhaps I should be more modest, but I see no reason not to go for it. Stay tuned.

 

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[COSenior]

I've got 25,626 words on the next book, which is a thriller. I'm thinking it will be in the 60K-70K

Have you checked the page count for other books like your WIP? I ask because you're talking about a book that will end up to be between 200-250 pages, depending on whether you publish to CreateSpace and get real page count, or just to the ebook version, which will estimate fewer than actual count. I don't know what kind of thriller, i.e., what sub-category it will be, but I checked the top 15 or so medical thrillers, where our (@mossie's and mine) is #8, and they range from a low of around 295 to over 600 pages. Ours, at 320, is on the low end. If I'm not mistaken, it was over 100k words. My latest romance, at almost exactly 80k words, ended up with 292 actual pages on CreateSpace.

I don't want to discourage you, but if you're swinging for the upper deck, you might want to reconsider your anticipated word count. It seems that thriller readers want a meaty book.

 

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[ChickenHawk]

I don't want to discourage you, but if you're swinging for the upper deck, you might want to reconsider your anticipated word count. It seems that thriller readers want a meaty book.

This sounds like excellent advice. I can attest to a similar problem in reverse. My last book, I think, was too long for my genre. It's funny how this works, but it's definitely something worth looking at.

 

[COSenior]

I worry about story pacing and dragging out a story just for filler.

Based on our experience, you're right to worry about that. We've found that the answer is to add plot twists and plenty of action spread throughout the book. I tend to write pretty spare scenes myself, and Mossie is always having to ask me to add more gore, or whatever the scene is missing. Usually my second pass nearly doubles the size of the scene. Here are the reminders I keep posted on my wall:
A scene must have at least two of the following elements: Advance the story, Provide new information, Move the reader along.
and:
How does it: Feel emotionally, Feel to the touch, Taste, Sound, Look or Smell: Show it, don't tell it.

Helps me to keep those in mind, hope it helps you, too. Race you to the top deck!

 

[Magik]

Hello all,

I have a book that I am going to finish, this progress thread is meant to track the progress of it and give me some accountability and encouragement.

The first draft is already finished, and has been finished for a while now. I first started writing this book back in 2008 and finished the first draft a few years ago. It's just something I did on the side while I worked. I'm the type of person who is easily distracted. I have a very hard time staying focused on one thing. I have had the habit in the past of being event driven. I've started many websites that went nowhere (most of them blogs, I've decided that I hate managing blogs). I created a social networking site 3 or 4 years ago for the mental health industry. I ended up folding it because I did not know how to get people on it.

This book that I will finish this year won't go away. I've put off finishing it and it is something that I've thought about on a weekly basis, sometimes on a daily basis. No matter what else I start and end up not finishing or folding, I always end up back at this book. If nothing else, I want to finish the damn thing so I can move on with my life. I already have the next book bouncing around in my head, but I'm not starting on it until I finish this one.

The first draft was hand written, which was a mistake (sort of). While it is faster to type, creatively, there are some advantages to writing a first draft by hand. Next time, I will just use Scrivener, which is what I'm using for the rewrites.

So, I am currently in the rewrite phase. I am altering the story slightly, and excluding a few things I wrote in the first draft. One the first rewrite is done, I should have around 60,000 words (give or take). Then, I will go back through and do a second rewrite. The second rewrite will be to trim the 10% that adds nothing to the story and tie up the loose ends. Then the book goes off to a professional editor (who won't come cheap I'm sure). Once I get it back from an editor, then I design the cover (I already know what I want it to look like) and I take it to market.

If I could kill this thing, I would have already done it. I don't really understand why someone would want to write merely for profit. It just doesn't make sense to me. I'm not knocking it at all, I just have no desire to do it. I would much rather be building online businesses, tinkering with websites, etc. than writing, but it's something that just won't go away.

 

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[Magik]

I'm making progress. I have banged out three more chapters since my last posting, and I'm midway through a fourth. I have gotten a lot done, mostly on material that just needs to be rewritten. I've got about three or four more chapters that I have to write from scratch, which will take the longest. I'm still shooting for a 3/31 deadline on this rewrite.

As soon as I can get this one finished, I'm starting on the next one, which won't take near as long.

 

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[lleone]

Sounds like a great plan....see if Grisham is on Twitter and start following his tweets. Occasionally re-tweet his stuff and look for an opportunity to direct tweet him (not sell serving but just to build rapport)....over time he'll recognize your twitter name and may be open to read your book when ready....(if not...just stalk him...winning!...I mean kidding).

 

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[seamles]

Hope you get it published!

I'd be interested to see how your help writers site goes.

Good luck on your endeavors, hope we can help each other!

 

[Magik]

Update: Current word count is 39,779. I have 3-5 more chapter to write, then the story will be complete. From there, I will go back through and do editing and clean up.

The big question is whether or not to hire an editor. I think I could benefit greatly from editing, so I probably will, but the good one's don't come cheap.

I'll need to get rolling on a book cover sometime, which is no big deal. I know exactly what I want, just have to hire someone to handle. Once that's done, I'm up on Amazon and on to the next thing, which will be short stories because I can bang them out much quicker, and speed is important right now.

I'm excited.

 

[ChickenHawk]

Congrats on your progress!

Interesting it takes a while for editors. I'd been considering hiring one for my next book, and surprisingly, never considered that I'd have to arrange something months in advance. This is food for thought.

If anyone has any good books to share on self-publishing, I'm all ears.

Have you ever listened to the Self-Publishing podcast? It's great, because you can listen to it while you do other stuff. Anyway, the guys who do the podcast also wrote a book:
Write, Publish, Repeat
http://www.amazon.com/Publish-Repeat-No-Luck-Required-Self-Publishing-Success-ebook/dp/B00H26IFJS/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398920386&sr=1-1&keywords=write publish repeat
I bought the book to support the podcast, but haven't read it yet. Based on the level of expertise (and fun) they show with their podcast, along with the many great reviews, it might definitely be worth looking at.

 

[ChickenHawk]

Most people seem to guarantee a prize, which locks you in, and I don't like that at all.

I see your point, but if I were a designer with any talent, I'd NEVER submit my design for a non-guaranteed prize. For all I know, the book isn't even written yet (and might never be written), or maybe the author is just fishing for ideas, or looking for inspiration. Or maybe they want to take someone's design and replicate it on their own without paying anyone. To me, the guaranteed prize protects the designers from people who aren't sincere. I know that's not you, but there are a lot of unscrupulous people out there.

Next time I am probably going to build my own, once I find some good graphic design software.

I build my own, and I use a sadly outdated version of PaintShop pro, which isn't that expensive. (It's a lot cheaper than PhotoShop, that's for sure!)

 

[Magik]

The book cover is done and in my possession. It turned out better than I could have imagined. I ended up with three covers that were all based around the same design, the only difference being that each one uses the same colors, just in different places (hard to explain without showing you). I got the idea of doing a Kickstarter to fund a print run, and offer some signed books with limited edition covers as a perk for funding. This would come later though. 99Designs worked, but I did a lot of things wrong, so I got a bit lucky.

I've got a website up, nothing fancy though. It's about 75% ready. It's something I'll enhance over time, there's no need to go way overboard yet.

The next steps are to finalize the editing/rewriting, format/compile the book, finish getting all the marketing in place (which is quick) like Twitter, FB, Aweber, etc, and then... FIRE! (and of course, get rolling on the next book)

 

[Magik]

So glad to hear it worked! Since you feel you did a lot of things wrong, any tips on what you'd do differently in the future? Those "lessons learned" can be so helpful.

I could probably do an entire post on it. The biggest thing I would do differently is make it a blind contest. Blind is where the other designers can't see what else has been submitted. That way, they don't know what they have to beat. I also think it is wiser to spend extra money and do a higher package. I did the bronze one, which is the cheapest, and most of the designs reflected this. It worked though because now I have a designer I'll probably use over and over.

Interesting. It sounds like you've researched this pretty thoroughly. There seems to be two primary reasons to avoid the free model: (1) Free no longer results in a good sales boost afterwards, and (2) Free attracts negative reviews. Are these the reasons you're not planning any free promos? And, any additional insight on free?

It's hard to say. I'm sure someone somewhere is making it work, but free is nowhere in my Amazon strategy. With free, you definitely need to have a specific strategy. I just see it a better use of our time as writers to use our website (blog and free stories from time to time) and social media for free content. Then, once people make their way through our funnel (something similar as mentioned above), they are already warmed up and willing to buy. If someone has 10 books, it might make sense to make one of them free, but there needs to be a specific goal in mind for this. My goal though is to look as much like a professionally published author as possible. Only self-published authors ever put stuff on Amazon as free, so I don't want to send out that signal. The other thing is if someone is unwilling to pay $3 for a book, maybe we don't want them as our reader? People are programmed to be skeptical of free based on all our life experiences dealing with businesses, marketing, and sales people. I would think .99 is better than offering as free. If they can't pay a dollar, let them go somewhere else.

 

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[GuestUser113]

-I'm turning the short story I just mentioned into a novel. I put down 2,100 words yesterday in addition to the 5,800 I already have. They came very easy, which is not always the case. Odds are what will happen is I will move fast up to a certain point, then get bogged down for a while. That's what usually happens, but we'll see. I may be able to get this out by the end of the year, but I need to really move in order to do so.

Not sure if you know this. Recently amazon created a "short read" section. http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=kbhp_nb...rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1840219842&pf_rd_i=154606011

 

[ChickenHawk]

It sounds like you're making great progress!

It's not in a great genre for self-published books apparently, though there are many bestsellers from the traditional publishing world in it.

I wish I could recall where I heard this, but somewhere (probably on a podcast) an author mentioned he was having trouble competing in his genre, because there were so many traditionally published books, and then, he raised his price. The logic was that if his price were more comparable to what the traditionally published books were asking, it would actually help him look more like a traditionally published book, and not like an indie. I recall him saying he had some success with this technique. I'm not sure what your book is priced at, but if it's a lot lower than your competitors, maybe that's something to look at.

Here's to you hitting the upper deck!

 

[Mattie]

This is was my mistake on social media the last few years. Just getting followers doesn't do the trick. You do have to engage with them and become personal. I feel like I'm wasting a lot of time doing that, but it seems to be working when you get more personal.

I also use the commun.it that tells me who is the influencers and supporters. Thanks them for following and tweeting etc. Monitors people engaging. Who to follow and unfollow. I noticed this works, because you find the influencers that will tweet your stuff, and how many followers does your followers have? I've been following the one's that have 1 M followers or more. One person yesterday had two other people paying attention to me. I search the hashtags for the audience to interact with tweets. Works so far, but I've only been doing it for two weeks.

 

[Gymjunkie]

Congrats on the progress. I do think you can make it to September 1st deadline. Here is an great interview about fast writing and how one guy managed to do 50k words in 24 hours!

http://rockingselfpublishing.com/episode-40-write-lot-matt-ahlschlager/

 

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[Magik]

It sounds like you're making great progress!

An astounding amount of overall progress over the last seven months, but no money yet to show for it, and money pays the bills.

I wish I could recall where I heard this, but somewhere (probably on a podcast) an author mentioned he was having trouble competing in his genre, because there were so many traditionally published books, and then, he raised his price. The logic was that if his price were more comparable to what the traditionally published books were asking, it would actually help him look more like a traditionally published book, and not like an indie. I recall him saying he had some success with this technique. I'm not sure what your book is priced at, but if it's a lot lower than your competitors, maybe that's something to look at.

For #1, the primary category is contemporary fiction, which is a genre where the traditional publishers crush indies in sales. There's just so many well written books in that genre, and some well known names too. The big problem is I have no idea how many people are finding my book. My guess is not many, so it just comes down to getting seen somehow, and I'm just not sure how to do that.

I'm priced at $2.99, so I could easily go up, but I won't do that until after I run my promos, which will be last week in August or first week in September. I'm going to run it free for 5 days (which I hate to do), then at .99 for 7 days. That's 12 days discounted. Then, I'm going to add a page to the front pushing a Kickstarter campaign. I may also find a way to push people from Kickstarter to my Amazon page. Kickstarter is free, they make their money once you're funded. I have no idea if any of that will work, but at this point, there's nothing to lose.

 

[Magik]

Have you checked the page count for other books like your WIP? I ask because you're talking about a book that will end up to be between 200-250 pages, depending on whether you publish to CreateSpace and get real page count, or just to the ebook version, which will estimate fewer than actual count. I don't know what kind of thriller, i.e., what sub-category it will be, but I checked the top 15 or so medical thrillers, where our (@mossie's and mine) is #8, and they range from a low of around 295 to over 600 pages. Ours, at 320, is on the low end. If I'm not mistaken, it was over 100k words. My latest romance, at almost exactly 80k words, ended up with 292 actual pages on CreateSpace.

I don't want to discourage you, but if you're swinging for the upper deck, you might want to reconsider your anticipated word count. It seems that thriller readers want a meaty book.

I always estimate word count at 250 words per page (read that from an upper tier editor). My first book was a little over 45K and Amazon estimates at 179 pages, so very close. However, I use a lot of line spaces to break up scenes, so that might have something to do with it. But yeah, it may need to be longer than 60K-70K words. I'm sure I could hit 80K-90K or more, but it will take me longer and I worry about story pacing and dragging out a story just for filler. Based on my memory, I think you're right about longer word counts in thrillers. Most aren't under 300 pages. I will look into that.

 

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[Rainy_TX]

Welcome back! Here's to 'luck' like Grisham's!

 

[Magik]

One of my goals is to get Grisham to do a book blurb for me, right on the cover. I have no idea how I will make this happen (cart before the horse anyway), but he would definitely remember me. The problem is writers of that magnitude are hard to get to. It's something to keep motivation high anyway.

I think having outlandish things that you want, even if they are a bit unrealistic, are great to focus on. Logic only goes so far, you have to get emotional about your goals if you're going to hit them. That involves some focus on the grand prize and thinking about how it would feel to hit them. I have lots of grand prizes I focus on, anything to keep me motivated. I have actually visualized myself winning the Pulitzer Prize. Yes, the odds of that happening are slim, but I get an emotional charge out of it, which is needed for a hyper-logical guy like myself. I think about having a summer apartment in the Saint-Laurent area of Montreal and how great that would be. I think about how great it would be to have a book sell like The Firm or The Secret History.

I've gone off on a tangent here, but it's important stuff. Do what motivates you. Even if you don't get everything you want, by focusing on things that pull at your heart strings, you will get way more done in the long run. I may do a separate post about goal setting, it's very important.