Days 13, 14, and 15 - Catching up and Having Doubts
Now two weeks into this, I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of how Kindle Publishing works. Anyway, I feel confident enough to jump and build my net on the way down.
I spent the last few days out of town with my husband. My first real vacation in three years. And what did I do? I sat in the hotel room and wrote, edited, wrote new scenes, worked on social media. To be fair, it was raining where we were, but I went out as much as I could.
If you’re a writer, you know we must re-read our work almost a million times. By the time it’s ready, you’re practically sick of it. You know it inside and out. Yet, you still ask yourself, “What’s missing?” You might be in the shower and it hits you…More conflict! A funny line of dialog! Oh dang, the part where they kiss is cringeworthy - must re-write! When you have your story on your mind, you live in that world. I think about my characters all day. I dream about them at night. I wonder who they are. Does everyone do this?
I don’t think any writer ever has submitted a finished work and thought it’s perfect. Self-doubt is part of the game and I’m learning to live with it. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to a place where I love it, but I think I can accept it. It will never be perfect, but it will be done. All I can hope is that there aren’t any heinous grammar or spelling mistakes. Homophones are a weakness: Led, lead. Passed, past. Mail, male. See, sea. To, too.
Which leads (leds?) me to my biggest mistake of this whole process: Not getting it edited in time and not doing any kind of beta reading at all. I’m a copy-editor. I should know better. The editing process takes time. Weeks at best. I have twenty-one days until I launch. Groan. Is that enough time to get it edited? I’ve put my feelers out and haven’t had a lot of success. A few editors have responded, but it’s going to cost a ton and I’m trying to keep costs down. Problem is, I don’t feel like the story is exactly ready for editing. I feel like I need to sit on it more, let is marinate, something’s missing. I’m going to try a last-ditch effort this week to get it beta read. I just kind of need to know if anything’s missing or if it’s good or what. If you’re a writer, you know what I’m feeling. I think it’s good, my husband thinks it good - but will the world? If you read this before October 4th, 2019 and would like to beta read the story, get in touch and let me know if you’ve ever beta read before - not a criteria, but helpful.
I’ve joined a beta reading group on Facebook, but the odds of my getting fast results seems slim. I may also post on Twitter asking if anyone wants to beta for me. I don’t know why, but the beta reading process has me shook. I worry people won’t read it, will take too long, steal my ideas, who knows? Worst case scenario, responses will be bad and I’ll have to re-write the whole damn thing in two days. So yes, big mistake not doing all of this first. Had I started with a FINISHED and TESTED manuscript, I’d be less panicked. Big lesson here: Make sure your manuscript is ready! Duh.
Ok, so live and learn. If I miss my deadline, I miss my deadline. I’m going to do everything in my power to smash that deadline and get this thing rolling, but I want to do it right. As I’m writing this, I feel like switching the season of my story to Autumn because the leaves on the trees are changing color. Oh man. I need to stop.
In other news, my second giveaway has ended and I received exactly the same entrants as the first one. That seems uncanny. I’m ramping up the giveaways all the way until the release of Lessons in Love and starting a new one on Tuesday (October 1st). Romance fans, stay tuned because I think you’ll like this one.
One thing I learned so far about these giveaways is that most people enter on the final days. I had almost no entries until Friday - I started on the previous Sunday - and them bam! Thirty entries. That’s why I’m starting this one on a Tuesday - to see if a shorter run makes a difference.
Finally, I’ll be sending out the first chapter of my novella to the Readers Collective soon so get on there. I’ve found what looks like a great service called Book Funnel that helps indie authors distribute their books and chapters to mailing lists. It’s a bit more complicated than that, so I need to research more. Have you used Book Funnel? What do you primarily use it for and is it worth it? Answer in comments below.