Jeff Haws

Independent author

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3 Lessons From Editing My First Novel

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Lessons 2

Last week, I finally finished the chief revisions on “Killing the Immortals,” nearly four months after I wrote the last words of the rough draft. I have no idea if “Six weeks to write and four months for editing” will be a common occurrence for me (It is my first book, so my experience level is a tad low), but that’s how this one went. So, here we are now, getting near the end, and I’m sort of in reflecting mode on how it’s all gone.

I’ve learned a lot during the past four months about my own writing (I use the word “just” way too damn much) and what’s effective for me when it comes to evaluating what I wrote. It’s not easy to step back from a personal project of this sort of length (88K words), that you put so much work into, and evaluate it fairly, in a way that allows you to actually see the warts, recognize them, root them out, and smash them into a million pieces.

Here are the three biggest lessons I’ve taken away from going through the four-month editing gauntlet with this book: [Read more…] about 3 Lessons From Editing My First Novel

Don’t Fall For These Twitter Distractions

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Twitter 2

In trawling the interwebz yesterday, I ran across a post at the Self Publishing Advice blog by a Swedish indie author named Anna Belfrage discussing whether or not Twitter can be effective as a marketing tool for self-published authors. And, while I’m certainly a novice — considering I haven’t actually published a book yet, “novice” might even be kind — at self publishing, Anna is an admitted novice at Twitter. So, while I can’t say for sure whether Twitter is necessarily effective at marketing self-published books in particular, I can say it’s been an effective tool in marketing for my past two jobs (Yes, I’m a social/content marketer by day, aspiring author by night/weekend, much like a super hero), and I’m fairly confident I can make it work for me in the author world too.

Now, to her credit, Anna does admit to her inexperience with the medium, and she does acknowledge that Twitter helped somewhat, and could probably help more as she grows her following/becomes more comfortable with using it. But you don’t see much of that unless you read to the end, and I’m afraid there’s a decent bit of not-very-good advice and implied advice earlier in the piece. I wanted to address a bit of it here: [Read more…] about Don’t Fall For These Twitter Distractions

Your First Look at the Cover for My Novel

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almost-there-sign

I’d imagine few things make the whole “I’m going to publish a book” thing feel more real than the day you receive your book’s cover from the designer. It’s one of those moments where it starts to come to life, where you see the first artistic vision of the world you created with words.

That’s the step I’ve reached. I’ve been running through some options with my designer, along with a revision or two, and now I’m ready to reveal the cover for my first novel. Take a look below. [Read more…] about Your First Look at the Cover for My Novel

Setting Sales Goals for Your First Novel

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Goals

As I get closer to sending my first novel, “Killing the Immortals,” sailing out into the world, I’m starting to think seriously about what I want to accomplish with it, what sorts of goals to set for myself. The Nobel Prize for Literature would be all right, I guess. There may be a step or two to get through before that, though. Admittedly, I don’t know a lot about the committee that decides those sorts of things, but my assumption is that they’ve got a high-ish bar.

So, we all may want to have incremental goals shy of a Nobel Prize that will give us something to shoot for in the meantime, until fame and fortune come to whisk us away. I think goals are important, but I also think they’re challenging to figure out when you’ve never published a novel before. You can look at all the “The average self-published book sells 250 (or whatever) copies” blog posts you want, but how does that relate to what you’re doing? So many factors are going to impact how many people buy your book and how wide a reception it gets, from its genres to its cover to the blurb you write to the following you’ve built up to how much work you put into marketing the book to whether or not your story/writing sucks. What does “average” even really mean when so many books are haphazardly thrown together with visions of hefty royalty checks, mahogany-decked libraries, and new elbow-patched jackets without considering the insane amount of work and luck it takes to become the next millionaire author? [Read more…] about Setting Sales Goals for Your First Novel

5 Reasons I Love Goodreads (and One I Don’t)

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Goodreads

For those of you who don’t know anything about Goodreads, think of it as the Facebook for book dorks. The site has millions of active members, dedicated to reading — and, many, writing as well. You can add your dorky friends, share what you’re reading — you can see my Goodreads feed and visit my shelf from the sidebar to the right — and see which books are popular among equally nerdy people as yourself. It’s all pretty great, if reading books is your thing. Or, at least, one of your things. And, as someone who falls into that group, here are 5 reasons I love Goodreads (as a reader), along with an extra reason that I don’t. [Read more…] about 5 Reasons I Love Goodreads (and One I Don’t)