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!
