Jeff Haws

Independent author

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Process

5 Lessons from a First-Time Author

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Lessons 3

Writing your first novel is, in many ways, a grueling experience. Some of it, I wasn’t entirely prepared for. A lot of it, I definitely didn’t see coming. Through the process, I learned I was well suited and trained for much of it, and not really ready at all for some of it.

I started writing on the morning of Dec. 19, and it took me right at six weeks to write about 85,000 words. From there, it took me six months to edit it and get it to where I felt like it didn’t suck, and could go out into the world. Sometimes, I got frustrated. Other times, I was excited. Almost all the time, I wanted it to be over, and be where I am today, with a brand new novel sitting on Amazon’s virtual shelves and several positive reviews alongside it.

Here are five key lessons I’ve learned from going through this process. If you ever think about writing a book of your own, hopefully you can learn from the stupid things I did, and do fewer stupid things yourself. [Read more…] about 5 Lessons from a First-Time Author

How Much Should a Novel Cost?

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It’s a tough question, and it’s one that shouldn’t be answered with a shrug and a blindfolded dart toss: How much should a novel cost? More specifically when it comes to me (and, maybe, you), how much should my novel cost? There are plenty of factors that go into figuring that out. [Read more…] about How Much Should a Novel Cost?

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

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

Editing Your Novel in 4 Steps

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Editing

Editing your novel is a pain, if you do it right. It just is. If you want to take your novel that next step to being a great book, there’s no real option but to pour your blood, sweat and tears into the editing process. It’s unlikely you can get away with much less.

Case in point: me. It took me six weeks from typing the first word to typing the last word of the first draft of my first novel. I finished it at the end of January. That means the editing process has now taken me almost three months, and the end is not especially near. My ballpark estimate is that it’ll be published sometime in July, but that’s a guess. It could be a bit later or sooner.

That is to say, it’s been three months, and it could easily be three more. Or even a bit more than that. The editing process could take me 5-6 times as long as the writing process did … and that’s not even unusual or a particularly long time for editing. Some people tinker with the damn thing for years.

So, let’s say you’ve gotten your draft back from your editor. It’s covered in red ink or comments on Track Changes. Maybe you also have a document with a summary of the editor’s thoughts. The edits number in the hundreds. It can seem overwhelming. How do you tackle all of this work? Here are four steps you can take to break it into pieces, and use it as a road map to go from a good story to a great book: [Read more…] about Editing Your Novel in 4 Steps

Why Shouldn’t I Hire an Editor for My Novel?

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To figure out why you should hire a professional editor for your novel, perhaps we should first look at why you shouldn’t do so. That because, well, it’s not at all cut and dried. Not everybody needs to put forth the effort, legwork and cold, hard cash to hire an editor for their novel. There are good reasons not to, and you might fit that profile. [Read more…] about Why Shouldn’t I Hire an Editor for My Novel?