Finding Bliss with Traditional Publishing

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My Traditional Publishing Journey - Part One

Back in July, I wrote a riveting 4-part series about my self-publishing journey. Then, in September, I was contacted by a senior editor at Amazon Publishing who expressed interest in publishing my future works. An event that I also wrote about here.

Since then I have acquired a literary agent, sold the rights to my third novel to Amazon Publishing, and sold the rights to One Pink Line to Amazon Encore. Once the ink was dry on the contract, I was given a deadline of January 15, 2013 to turn in the manuscript for my third novel to Amazon Publishing. Since I only had about 10,000 words written when I signed the contract back in October, I had a busy couple of months (and empty bottles of wine) over this past holiday season. Lots of writing, chatting with beta readers, and trips to Staples.

Thankfully, I had the story in my head and went to the library nearly every day and managed to turn my 72,000-word manuscript in to my editor and my agent by December 28th. I spent WEEKS trying to come up with the perfect title. Since the titles for my first two books both came to me in backlit epiphanies, I was sure the title for book three would happen the same way. Not so much.  Here is the evolution of titles for book three:

September:       Trying
October:           Chloe
November:       Bliss
December:       Bliss
January:           Finding Bliss

Finding Bliss it is! I don’t have a synopsis to share with you yet - wanna know why? Because I don’t have to write it this time!! HALLELUJAH!

I loathe writing a synopsis or ‘jacket copy.’ Attempting to explain my novel in 200 words or less without giving too much away is excruciating for me. I spend months writing my books, then months re-reading them, then more months editing them, then someone asks me what the book is about and I have nothing to say! How can one condense over 70,000 words of literary genius into mere cliff notes?? That – this now traditionally published scribe can say ­­– is not my problem anymore.

I can tell you that the story is about a girl named Chloe, who was Grace’s high-school best friend in One Pink Line. So if you’ve read OPL, then you’re in for a treat, but if you haven’t, it’s not necessary to your enjoyment of Finding Bliss. The book is not a sequel.

So, Finding Bliss was sent off to my agent and editor while I bit off all my nails and gained five pounds awaiting their responses. My agent, who apparently was Evelyn Wood in another life, read it immediately and loved it. She had a few issues with the ending, but I didn’t disagree with her so I will be making edits there for sure. I’m still waiting for detailed comments from my editor, but she has assured me that she loves it so far. Major phew.

I have to say, as much as I’ve enjoyed the self-published journey (and I truly have), having an enthusiastic team of people as invested in your book as you are is beyond fantastic. Once my editor read about half of my manuscript and determined it wasn’t complete crap, it was then sent to a developmental editor as well. Granted, I haven’t received their comments yet, but what a gift to have all of these trained eyes on my next book. Once they’re done with their edits, they will return the book to me by the end of January, and I will have two weeks to make my changes.

After my revisions are complete, the book will go into copyediting. Now let me talk about copyediting for a second. I have self-pubbed two novels: One Pink Line and Kat Fight. Each were professionally copyedited. Each were read by me at least 50 times. Each were read by proofreaders multiple times. Each were read by beta readers time and time again.  AND I STILL FOUND MISTAKES IN THEM ONCE THE BOOK WAS PUBLISHED! I can’t even imagine how many errors are in this blog post alone. Copyediting is the bane of my existence and I couldn’t be more grateful to hand the burden over to someone else. In fact, since One Pink Line is being re-released by Amazon Encore, they sent it through another copyedit two weeks ago and they STILL found mistakes. *sigh* Who, knew, I was, such a fan, of comma, usage?

The good news is that a new and improved paperback and eBook of One Pink Line will be available in the U.S. and the U.K. on May 28th!! I can’t freaking wait. Whoever just marked their calendar is my new bestie.

Anyway, back to Finding Bliss. Today is January 24th, and I have about six more days until I receive editorial comments back from Amazon Publishing. Then I will turn my changes back into my editor and wait for the copyedits to come back and make me feel like a complete moron.

After that, comes the cover art. The process of designing cover art is critical to me, and I have a very clear picture in my head for this third book of what I want the cover to look like. We’ll see if my team of enthusiastic people agrees…

Stay tuned for an update on Finding Bliss that will hopefully include a release date and cover reveal! 


8 comments:

  1. Dina, this is awesome! I find it so interesting to see the process in action. Maybe one day I'll be there too.
    Can't wait for your next book! Big congrats to all your well deserved success. :)

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  2. Can't wait to read this one! Congrats Dina!

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  3. So excited that this is moving forward! I CANNOT WAIT for this to be published.....I have it on good authority that everyone should put Finding Bliss on the top of the TBR pile the second it comes out!

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  4. Oh gosh, I feel both stressed out and excited just reading your post, Dina. Deadlines - EEK! I'm sure that it feels great to have back-up and a team to help you with all this. You'll be releasing TWO books through Amazon this year - woohoo! I take my hat off to you for writing FB in three months. You deserve a gold medal for that! Enjoy some time off before you get started on those edits!

    Looking forward to helping you spread the word about Finding Bliss once it's out! :)

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  5. What a great post, and congrats to you, on finding your Bliss!!
    Wendy

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  6. I am so excited for you, lady!! EEEEEKKKK! Congrats, honey!!!

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  7. Excited for you! Keep us posted on all of the updates.... xx, Lauren

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