I’m not a particularly patient person, and writing (then, eventually, publishing) a novel is certainly a good test for whatever patience I have. It’s sometimes amazing just how little of the time you spend writing, and how much is spent doing all sorts of things to polish and prepare that novel — and yourself, because you’re a writer, not a salesman, or something like that — for people buying it. And reading it. And not thinking it sucks. It’s not a quick process.
As I’m right in the middle of that, a blog post from Just Publishing Advice caught my eye the other day, looking at “How To Publish A Terrible Book.” Incidentally, it used to be really hard to publish a terrible book. You had to slip it by a lot of gatekeepers, from agents to editors to publishers before it ever saw the light of day, beyond you just paying to print a few copies for the people in your Bridge club. But today, with Amazon and other self-publishing services just a few mouse clicks away, it’s never been easier to publish your crappy little novel about unicorns and fairy dust (not that there’s anything wrong with unicorns and fairy dust). It takes no time at all to publish a terrible book. Anybody can do it, in less than the time it takes you to boil a pot of water for the pasta you’ll eat because it’s cheap, and nobody’s buying your terrible book.
If you want to write a good book, though — one people will buy, and enjoy, and recommend to their friends, and subsequently stalk you over — it takes a lot of patience, and a willingness to go through a borderline masochistic process of having people rip your work apart, and ripping it apart yourself, in the hopes of finding the diamond that hopefully lays at the heart of it. Here are the steps Just Publishing Advice laid out, all of which, once complete, might tempt you to publish, but that’s a temptation you must resist. I’ll look at where I stand with each.
- “If you haven’t had your manuscript read by someone else, do not publish.”
My beta readers just got through with mine, and it’s in the capable hands of my editor, so I can check this box. For some people, this is probably a hard step. But I’m used to my work being scrutinized and ripped to shreds by all sorts of people, some more and some less capable than myself. - “When you get some feedback, don’t publish.”
The beta reader feedback was pretty damn helpful. Definitely glad I took that step. But yeah, it’s far from the final step. I incorporated a lot of changes they suggested, but now my editor will get ahold of it and probably turn it into cat food. - “Now you have a story that works, walk away from it. Leave it for a month, or even two.”
While I didn’t leave it for a month or two, I did leave it for close to 3 weeks while I stepped away and wrote another story. Was that long enough? I think it was, but what do I know? Maybe that’s my impatience getting the better of me. - “After a good break from your manuscript, start your editing process. … Take your time, and then, do not publish.”
Another check mark for me, as I’ve talked about above. I’m nowhere near publishing. There’s no way it’ll happen before May, and I’m fully prepared for it to be more like late June/July. - “Now it’s time to find, pay or barter and get yourself a proof reader. Be patient and wait for that to be done and make the corrections. Then, do not publish.”
My editor will do for this step. She’ll do a content edit first, then come back with a line edit once the content is set. By the time that’s done, it should be a glisteningly clean manuscript. - “Prepare your manuscript for publication and test it with a program such as Calibre … Now, ready? No, do not publish.”
Formatting is one of those steps you don’t think about before you write a book, but is actually really crazily important, particularly with Amazon’s new crackdown on making sure the books in the Kindle marketplace aren’t riddled with stupid errors, making them truly terrible books. It’s not as easy to format a novel for all these different e-readers (Kindle, Kobo, Nook, etc.). I’m still debating whether to do this myself, or to have a service do it for me. - “Find some beta readers to read your finished book on their Kindle or iPad … Do not publish.”
So, do I need to get some readers to check my formatting in the end too? It’s not a terrible idea. Perhaps I’ll be asking more people for help. This should be a lot easier than actually beta reading, though. - “Prepare your manuscript again with Calibre, then read your book again … Publish now.”
Yes! My struggling patience will finally pay off! Hopefully.
So, yes. It’s a long road, and Just Publishing Advice did a good job of laying everything out. Read the whole post. There’s lots more than what I excerpted. And, if you’re writing, be patient. Even if you don’t want to — and you probably don’t want to.
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