I Have Come So Far, Yet I've So Far To Go

Hey There!

Well, we made it to December. I don’t know about you, but in some ways, this year feels like it just started and in other ways, it feels like this year has gone on forever.

I lamented a little in the last couple of newsletters about how frustrating it has been for me to miss my self-imposed deadline of getting this all done and putting it out into the world before the end of the year. That is still a bitter pill to swallow for a guy who typically looks at things and figures he can do this efficiently and quickly.

Creativity does not work like that though. The creative process in my experience is full of starts, stops, and anything in between. I get huge bursts of energetic productivity and get into an amazing flow and tend to be blown away by how much I get done. Then, I get distracted, struggle, hit a lull in productivity, and get frustrated by how slow things are moving along.

Measuring progress on this project was so much easier when it was just word count. The process of chugging out “x” words over the course of a week was so much easier than the process of looking over your work, seeing how it all ties together, and making sure when you make adjustments or changes that it doesn’t ruin the feel of the track you were on. It gets really crazy when you look at a chapter or a few chapters and want to move it around a little. I have been working through some of that kind of stuff in the editing process lately and it is hard to measure progress on it. Basically, I can say it is still very much moving forward and I am enjoying playing with the manuscript to see how I can make it better.

On another entirely different note, as I approach the light at the end of the tunnel for editing, it brings up a new challenge. That light isn’t necessarily the end of the tunnel, it’s possibly another train coming my way… What do I mean? Well, once the book is finished there are a few things that will have to take place.

At the twenty-five thousand foot level, it looks like this.

1. Beta readers for the story. I want to put the book out to get some feedback from a few beta readers. What does this do? It allows me to put the work out into a space to get some constructive feedback. I have plugged into a couple of spaces to connect with a few beta readers.

2. Final Edits. This will take the feedback from beta readers and work through the constructive feedback. Where appropriate, changes will be applied to the work.

3. Type Setting the book for publication. I have to get the book set to upload for publishing sites such as Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) or Ingram Spark. I have done this before and while it is not a terrible process it is a process.

4. Order a Gallery Proof. A Gallery Proof is an advanced copy to see what it looks like after publication. Authors do this to make sure everything looks good before releasing it out into the world.

5. Marketing Process. This one has been something that started from the very beginning but will need to kick into high gear when the book is about to be released and after the book is released. This newsletter while informative on this entire project is one example of that effort. Through this newsletter, I have been working to develop a relationship with the readers hoping that they will take a chance on me and read my book when it releases. I have been slowly building an audience on this mailing list since I started through the use of Meta Facebook Ads. This strategy will change as the book releases and the focus will shift to ads that are selling the book on Amazon. The creation of those ads and the strategy behind it all is the process that will have to be put into place once the book is released. I could spend a very long time just walking through all of that, let’s just say it’s a big effort that takes a lot of creativity and testing.

As I sit here I think that is all that will have to happen in the near future in order to release the story. I could be missing something, but I sure hope I am not as all this alone is more than enough work than I really have time for.

It is crazy to think that I am coming up on a solid year from when I first started this journey. I initially thought about doing this last December and here we are in December again. So much has happened in the effort of this little project and so much more is still yet to come.

If I don’t talk to you before Christmas, I hope you have a great one!

Shamon