Category Archives: publishing

A Novel Release During A Novel Virus Pandemic

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Close your eyes and imagine – no Internet, no Google, only dial-up email. There are two generations of individuals who may not remember such a terrifying vacuum. Even if you were 10 years old in 1996, you don’t understand what “dial-up” felt like. We thought it was slow before we had a clue just how truly slow it was.

Back then individuals who wanted to be published had to send their queries and sample chapters by snail-mail in large brown envelopes to agents and/or editors to review. In fact, one really needed an agent, because most editors would not look at unsolicited or un-agented works. Writer’s Market was a source for potential publishers/agents, but writers could also pitch their books at conferences.

Selling one’s work has always been, to a great extent, the responsibility of the author, through book signings, conference attendance, and word-of-mouth. Since the mid-to-late 2000s, the internet has provided additional tools: an author platform (website or blog), Face Book, Twitter, Goodreads, among others. But, while these social media sites help, they are not the easiest applications to figure out, especially when you were born before Eisenhower was president of the USA.

In 2019 I began a series of postings about seeing a novel through the publication process. I’d posted articles about renewing my search for and finding a publisher, considering the offer, and working with the editor. On March 2, 2020—seven days before my book was to be released—I was working on a blog regarding marketing the work (see above paragraphs). But by then COVID-19 was inserting itself into the lives of the citizens of Planet Earth.

I’m not going to relate in any form what happened during the pandemic. We all lived through the months since March 2020. In fact, we still exist in a COVID-19-centric world.

But we have begun to move forward.

In that spirit, I’m pleased to say that the first two books in my Kate Starling Mysteries series have been released. Mistaken Identity was released on March 9, 2020, and Connections was released on July 6, 2021.

My marketing activities are gradually resuming although they are still somewhat limited. Many of the conferences and writers’ group meetings have been cancelled or simply “Zoom’d” thus far in 2021. In addition, many book stores and other venues were reluctant to host book signings during the pandemic (until recently). But the good news is, unlike in the 1990s, we have social media platforms to help.

Please check out my Books Tab to read information about the series and the first two books.

Editing Your Manuscript

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Remember those speakers at writers conferences who said you need to borrow or buy a professional editor to help you with your manuscript? Well, if you haven’t followed their advice, it’s not too late.

I’ll confess that I did not use a professional editor to prepare my manuscript for submissions in the 1990s. I did belong to a feedback group that provided a lot of advice and suggestions. Good, but not the same thing. Later, I was fortunate to have a professional editor look over my manuscript and begin editing before the “2016 publisher” went out of business.

My full-on experiences with an editor have come with my current publisher, first with Mistaken Identity, then with Connections. I’m not sure if there’s a “standard” for processing a manuscript for publication, but the process set up by my publisher seems logical and has worked well for me.

Initially, my editor marked up the submitted manuscript and returned the file to me via email. I read the marked up manuscript, making changes to a “clean copy” file of the manuscript. When I returned the new file, I noted in the email any variance from the editor’s changes and any significant changes I made. We then completed a second editor-author edit exchange for each book.  

Once the galley had been created from the second round clean copy, I had two opportunities to make any final changes, first by reviewing a PDF version and finally by reviewing a print version.

Here’s what I’ve learned from this experience:

  1. If you think that those “A’s” you scored in English/grammar classes prepared you for the challenge of being a professional editor, you are mistaken. As I was, you may be confident that your manuscript is in pretty good shape, but there is a lot more to the task.
  2. If an editor gives you a list of global style changes, take the time to make them. This person knows what is current and acceptable and can help you with consistency and word flow. This can be from an editor at a conference, an editor to whom you submitted your work, or the editor assigned by your publisher.
  3. If an editor asks you a question about a character, relationship, event, time reference, or anything else, don’t just answer the question in a note to the editor, answer the question in your book. I found that the answers can be provided in a sentence here or there. Even more importantly, the questions may point out an “oops” in your plot line or a character’s behavior.
  4. If an editor makes a word or format change, think about how it might be applied elsewhere as you read your manuscript again.
  5. Finally, don’t be too timid to challenge your editor’s changes. If it’s a technical edit that you aren’t sure of, look it up in your own source and send off an email to discuss it with the editor. If your editor challenges something in the story itself, think it through and then discuss it with the editor. Editors are good and necessary, but they do not claim to be perfect. Right or wrong, the discussion will help you to hone your writing skills.