Wednesday, February 5, 2020

The Insecure Writer and Taking On the Publishing World



Today is February's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.

What makes me an Insecure Writer this month?

All the things I have to do before my book comes out.

Those of you who stop by this blog on a regular basis know I’ve started a new series of posts chronicling my journey into book marketing. Now that the first draft of my debut urban fantasy is finally finished, I’m entering a whole new world of publishing. There are editors to find, email lists to build, social media sites to conquer, cover designers to interview, a dedicated author website to construct… 

And here I thought editing my novel would be the hard part.

So, if you’re interested in seeing how I approach this book marketing stuff, stop by every now and then and I’ll keep you updated. Comments and suggestions will be welcome. Who knows, maybe you’ll pick up a few new tricks along the way, too.

I took a little break from writing these last couple of days and focused on getting my office back in order. The first order of business was to dig through the huge stack of papers handed to me by my critique partners over the past year and confirm I’d added all their suggested changes to my manuscript before tossing the papers away. Yes, that empty space on the shelf looks really nice. Too bad it'll probably fill up again soon.

I also cleaned up the filing system on my computer. I had too many versions of each chapter. Before crits, after group 1’s critiques, after group 2’s critiques, plus a slew of other variations. To be honest, I wasn’t completely sure where the most recent version of each chapter was located. Now that’s all taken care of and it feels good.

Anyway, the year is one twelfth over, and if last year was any indication, this year will fly by so quickly I’ll need to maintain my focus to get my book out the door before it ends.



ChemistKen