Needing Another Fork

A little over a year ago, I wrote a post (my second here, I believe) about my rough draft being finished.

I am relieved to say that, as of 11:35pm this evening (28 March 2017), the 53 chapters of my second draft are complete.  I have some final, “clean up” tasks to complete, but I don’t see why these would take more than an evening…which means I’ll have a complete manuscript for my editor by the 30th.

A couple people have asked me if I’m excited to be this close to finished with the book; one of those occurred just today over lunch, in fact.  The truth is, as much as I want this work to become a published novel, I am far more relieved right now than excited.  I feel like I can do other stuff with my life for a little while before diving back in for Book 2.

Don’t get me wrong; I love writing.  Writing is very rewarding for me, and there are a number of stories I want to tell.  In fact, I’m considering a plan to produce two novels every 12 – 18 months…but we’ll see how that turns out.

From here on out, the road to publication looks something like this:

1. Send the manuscript to the editor on or before April 1st.
2. Hire a graphic artist to produce the image for the cover.
3. Have the cover laid out.
4. Purchase ISBNs and an ISBN barcode.
5. Work with the editor to revise the manuscript.
6. Build the website and digital identify for Knightsfall Press, the publishing company I formed to publish my novels.
7. Send the manuscript with front and back matter to my formatting service of choice.  (In my mind, Booknook.biz is the only formatting service to be considered.)
8. Choose a publication date.
9. List my ebook on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and several other sites.  Purchase a used Mac (no way am I paying their inflated prices for a new one) to list my ebook on iBooks…or use an ebook aggregation service such Bookbaby or IngramSpark.  Personally, I like the idea of listing my novels myself, but that may change after Book 1.  🙂
10. Advertise the novel.
11. Hope and pray I’m telling a story people enjoy and want to read.

Steps 2 – 6 can happen concurrently, but the rest are fairly sequential.

I’m also still turning over in my mind when I want to release/publish the audio-book version and whether I want to publish an actual book.  The question of whether to publish an actual book carries with it the question of pre-printing or print-on-demand.  Print-on-demand is very nice, in that I don’t have to pay for X number of copies before knowing whether they’ll sell…but it has a longer lead time than if the books were sitting in a warehouse, waiting to be shipped.

Also, there’s the question of whether print-on-demand books show as “In Stock” or “Out of Stock.”  I know if you use print-on-demand through Amazon’s CreateSpace, Amazon always shows the book as “In Stock,” but I’ve read enough bad reports of the CreateSpace’s print-on-demand quality for any books sold outside of the author’s ordering portal that I’m leery of using CreateSpace.  If I go the print-on-demand route, I’ll probably use Bookbaby; I like what I’ve read about their service.

Either way, I’m certainly pleased the chapters are complete.