Publishing my first novel: expectations vs. reality

The cold, hard truth is that it’s almost cliche how UN-realistic my expectations were when I started this process. I thought, okay, I’ll watch a few YouTube videos, read a few blogs…. I’ve been writing my whole life, how hard can it be?

The answer is it can be VERY hard. So hard, in fact, that there were moments I would have rather ripped all my hair out, strand by strand, than read through my manuscript one more time. At this point, I could recite it in front of an audience, all 90,000 words of it.

The writing was the easy part. It wasn’t until I got to the editing, marketing, and promotion that I started second-guessing my lifelong dream. You see, writing is easy for me. It’s always been easy, it’s always been something I’ve been good at, and it was always something that felt natural. That is, of course, until I sent my first draft off to an editor and they tore it into metaphorical shreds in front of my face, stomping on my heart as it also fell to the floor.

Apparently, I’m not so great of a writer, after all. Okay, I can deal with that. So what’s the damage? How much “fixing” am I looking at here? (Is how the conversation started, with myself still feeling optimistic.) Turns out a complete rewrite was just the start. On top of the plot holes and inconsistencies, I also had to deal with these strange concepts called showing vs telling, head-hopping, filter words, useless words, sentence fragments, “ly” adjectives, and act structure.

What?

The editing of my novel, or saving it rather, took months and months and many more YouTube videos and blog posts. But after re-reading and re-writing the manuscript another few times, adding and deleting words, passages, entire chapters, I think I got it. I cut a little here to add more there. I deleted complete scenes that I thought were really cool because, as it turns out, they were just “waisted words” as my editor so eloquently put it.

Okay, now what? Enter beta readers!

This turned out to be the most fun part of the process because I got to experience complete and total ego squash that comes with strangers pointing out exactly where and why your manuscript still sucks after spending an entire year writing it, and months "saving” it. Yes, that was SO FUN!

After the beta phase, it was back to the editor for a final Copy Edit and proofread. But now, it HAS to be right, right? I’ve spent more time making more edits and changing my work to meet other’s expectations - for the sake of the art, ha! Maybe NOW I’ll get that much-needed pat on the back, the good job I’d been waiting for.

Wrong again.

My copy editor sent me back a manuscript with enough track changes to make a dictionary blush. I think I counted 3,600 errors in 90,000 words. The paper looked like a murder scene covered in red ink.

No biggie! Brush your shoulders off and keep it moving! Already made it this far, no sense in giving up now. Final edits, proof, and boom. The manuscript is done.

But is it?

Turns out, no, because after I already put the interior documents together for the print-on-demand company, and ordered author copies, there were still more typos and inconsistencies, and another round of edits had to happen. Of course, I had already sent out the manuscript for Galley at this point too, and industry professionals were readying the book and taking notice.

Ooops.

Okay, fixed that, again, resent Galleys, reordered author proofs… On to promotion!

After weeks of social media promotion and pushing, THE BOOK IS UP FOR PREORDER! Yay! Expecting a huge jump in preorder sales. Can’t wait to get home and check my Amazon dashboard!

Click… reports… generate… DRUM ROLL!

Two… yes, that’s right, two preorders. One order is my own, and the other is my mom’s.

Okay! Well, this is certainly going great! But hope is not dead yet! Maybe it should be, but I’m not giving up! We’re a month and a half away from launch and I have a few more things up my sleeve that I’m really hoping will make a big splash and get my book the attention I feel it deserves.

So far, mom’s read it, and she thinks it’s great. That count’s for something, right?