E-publishing doesn't mean you're going it alone.

Good morning!

"Fresh Ice,"  my newest novel, is in a bit of a holding pattern at the moment.  At least it feels like that.  All authors feel that way when they have to depend upon others to get their books published.  Traditional authors feel that way as they wait for word from their agent or editor for edits, release dates, all of that.

Self publish/e-pub authors set their own timetables.  I've known for some time that "Fresh Ice" was going to come out in 2012, toward the end of the year.  (I know, I thought Spring, but let's be real:  this is me we're talking about.)  E-pubs don't have to wait for an editor to give them galleys and release dates.

That doesn't mean e-pub authors work alone.  Not even close.  Right now, I've got no less than four people working on different aspects of the book, and I haven't even sent it to the formatter yet.  My new cover artist, Kim, is creating an image that is going to be beautiful.  My critique partners, Linda and Kelly, are painstakingly pointing out areas in the book that need strengthening and editing.   And my beta reader-Paula, well, I'm hoping she's reading and enjoying the book.  I never know until she hands it to me.

Just because we "do it on our own" e-pubbers should never think we are doing it "alone."  It still takes a team to put out a book.  The difference is that the author is the captain of that team.  It's more than a little scary, when you think about it.  E-pubbers rely heavily on the opinions of critique partners and friends.  I'm blessed to have a really great team.  I trust each of these women with a precious pearl...my work.

Friends, if you are considering e-pubbing, you are still going to need a support team.  Yes, ultimately, you're doing this on your own, from start to finish, an e-pubbed author gets to move forward without fear of rejection from above.  That might seem like a great thing...but sometimes it's very scary.  For me, "Fresh Ice" was a terrible book at the start, and my critique partner Linda let me know it.  Thank heavens.  She has been a critical member of the team to get the book to the point it's at right now.  Kelly, Kim, and Paula, all super important as well as we move this beast into the final stages when I can turn it over to 52 Novels formatting and get the thing out there for the world to judge.

So no, I don't get rejection letters anymore.  I get sternly worded critiques and neatly printed margin notes instead from people I trust, from people who, in the cases of Kim and Kelly, I've never even met in person, but who know me very well through my work.

E-pubbing is not a lonely road.  It's not a solo journey.  It is, however, a real test of your ability, as an author, to find the right people to help you reach your goals.

No go forth and WRITE!

How important is editing, really?

Good evening!

So I'm in the home stretch for "Fresh Ice."  It's exciting.  I've just ordered a whole pile of business cards with the title of the book, which means I can't change the title of the book, and I'm working with an artist for cover art.

And now, I'm editing.  I'm going through all those pages of line edits my critique partner has been sending me to religiously, and I'm fixing the grammar and spelling and other issues that rough drafts tend to have.

But how important is all that, really?

Do readers really notice things like the odd spelling mistake or a grammar error?

One of the criticisms of the self pubbed and the e-pubbed is that the editing is not what it should be.  I've heard people, and sure, many of them are folks who are trying to feel superior about NOT self publishing, say that the final product in a self published book is not a clean copy.

That may have been true in the early days of e-pubbing.  And, I'm sure, that's true to a certain degree now.  There will always be poorly written books.  There will always be books where we shake our heads and say, "How on EARTH did this get published?  This is crap!"

(What writers are really saying here is, "What do I gotta do to have a New York Times best seller?")

Anyway, I digress.  Editing is, was, and always will be, important.  Spell check is not the answer.  Spell check is a good start.  But if you are going to write, and if you are going to be serious about writing and publishing, whether you go to a traditional publisher, an e-first publisher, or self publish, you need to have a few editing tools:

1)  A complete grasp of the language in which you are writing.

2)  A good critique partner who has a complete grasp of the language in which you are writing.

3)  Patience to line edit everything you write no matter where you are going to market it.

Line edits are a bore.  When I was working with an editor over at The Wild Rose Press on Dream in Color, I was in a rush all the time to get edits done.  The editor was none to pleased with me because I was not doing LINE EDITS.  I feel terrible now, but at the time, I was a first time author eager to get my book out.  I hadn't a clue what was involved.

With Lies in Chance partly because I knew I was doing this on my own, with the help of my critique partner, and partly because I'd been over the darn thing about a million times in 30 years, line editing was a bit easier, but still a challenge.  (I maintain that "Lies" will always be my "Rose Red"  the book was never finished.  I could go in there now and completely change the plot, that's how much I love those characters.) 

Now, line editing, no matter who is doing it, is not perfect.  My father, and English teacher, found two spelling errors in Dream in Color.  My coworker, a complete whackadoo, found five spelling errors in Lies in Chance.  My mother found something grammatical wrong with Dream, but I forget what it was.

On the whole, I think most readers over look the odd error, or the dangling preposition.  (No...Linda...I'm not going to dangle any prepositions on purpose!  I promise!)    I think some reader...some...are more critical when it comes to e-pubbed books, but I believe many of them are in the minority.  Readers, true readers, want a good story and can be forgiving when it comes to structure if the story is solid and the mistakes aren't too glaring.  (Change the color of the hero's eyes halfway through, however, and you're finished!)

So I'm off to line edit, fix, remove, and rebuild the smaller bits and pieces of the new novel.  I'm excited because the next step is it goes to my reader, a woman who loves to read and will inform me if the mistakes are distracting.  It's a big step in the life of a book, and it's one I'm eager to get to.

But first....I must read the book line, by line, by line.

Yawn!

A tool you may not be using...the beta reader.

Good evening!

Writing is a fairly solitary activity.  Sure, we have writer's meetings, conferences, get togethers, all of that.  But the actual act of writing is solitary.  Many writers joke about how busy they are with friends...the ones in their plot, the ones in their heads.  The bigger joke many writers have is that we writers are all a tiny bit schizophrenic.

The problem with a solitary activity is that we tend to lose perspective from time to time.  I'm not talking about sitting at your computer, thinking you're writing the next Gone with the Wind, and you're really not even stringing together coherent sentences.  We all have those moments, most of us recognize them, and we cheerfully hit the delete button and move on.

I'm talking about getting to the end of a manuscript and thinking that this is truly the finished product. 

Well why not?

You've had your critique partners critique it chapter by chapter for you.

You line edited it.

You had your college aged brother/kid/neighbor line edit it for you in exchange for a hot meal.

You are ready to submit it to a publisher...or better yet...publish it yourself!

But wait.

There's a tool you should have, could have, in your writing tool box, and you may not be using it...you may not even know you need it.

I certainly didn't.

When I was writing Dream in Color (Click here to purchase)  I was convinced...CONVINCED that I had a complete project on my hands.  So I sent it out...and got rejection upon rejection upon rejection.  REjection letters being what they are, I didn't have a clear idea what was wrong with it.

Until I talked to my friend "Penny."  Penny is not a writer.  She is, however, an avid reader, and better yet, an avid reader in my target audience.  I told her I was writing a book, she expressed a wish to read it.  I asked her if she'd read it and comment on it for me.

She agreed.

About a week later, Penny handed me back my three ring binder.  "Over all I like it," she said, " but there's just something....I'm not sure how you'd fix it, but it needs fixing because it's a little confusing.  Although I'm not sure what else you could do it."

Not exactly a rave review.

BUT, knowing that a reader had actual feelings about the book, and was able to at least tell me that there was something unclear about it, I went back to the manuscript.  I fleshed out the characters.  I made Ramona's daydreams more vivid.  I added more of the mother character, much to my own mother's delight. 

And then I asked her to read it again.  This time, she loved it.

And I sold it to The Wild Rose Press.

My next project, the much rewritten, oft shelved, never quite forgotten Lies in Chance (click here to purchase) got the same treatment.  I set it to Penny.  Again, a week later, she handed back my three ring binder and said the words I will never forget.  "Your last book was good. This one was a joy to read."

It is,  to this date, the best review I've gotten.  And that's saying something since, reviews for Lies includes a woman who came up to me at a writer's conference book signing, pointed to Lies in Chance, and shouted..."I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THAT BOOK!"  (and no, it was NOT my mother.)

So I guess what I'm trying to say is before you send your baby off to an agent, an editor, or a formatting company, pause for a moment and think about the reader.

I know, weird, right?  I've taken probably 800 workshops on how to write to get published.  I have taken classes on how to pitch a book to sell it, how to write three chapters to win writing contests, and how to get an agent to look at my book.

What we writers seem to have overlooked is...the reader.

In this day of self publishing, we get to cut out the middle man to a certain extent.  Oh we still need to edit, to critique, but if self publishing is the path you've chosen, you no longer have to write to please an agent or an editor.  You have to write to please the reader.  So it stands to reason, then, that you should probably have a READER read your book before you publish it.

It may just be the most important tool in your bag of writing tricks.