Monday, March 17, 2014

Last month. . . Hopefully?

Alright, so, as this update stands, I am currently editing my book with all of the comments my amazing editor has given me. She spent so much time on it for me and I am so grateful and I do not fault her in any way for things that have popped up along the way. I totally understand how crazy life can be. She has given me a lot of great advice and as I have gone through it, I have discovered something pretty amazing. Here is what I posted to my G+ page.
...Before I started getting my book ready for publishing (Beyond the Unknown ...) I had just over 51,000 words within it. [That equals out to a]bout 175 pages. I am currently at that exact word mark that I started at, and I still have [somewhere around a] quarter of the book left to go! Estimated final word count ... is OVER 80,000 words. ...
I'm super excited for it, if you can't tell! However, due to my incredible work load (which is only going to get heavier as school starts to 'wind down' with finals and last term) and the work load I know my editor is going through, I am going to pull a very UN-SMART move, one that I do not suggest to ANYONE. I am going to be publishing my book after this one edit. After I finish editing this book, (I'm hoping and praying it will only take to the end of this week) I will go through it once more (more of a skim over really, to make sure there are no formatting issues or stupid mistakes I missed) and then I will submit it. My goal  is to get my book publish on or very near to April 1st (Yes, I know, April Fools' Day, I'm trying not to make this a joke though) and if I am able to publish early I might just do an early release on Amazon Kindle. We will see though.

So, more on my independent publishing. How this is going to work is I am going to publish my book to Amazon in two forms. One is going to be Amazon Kindle (and it will obviously be cheaper than a paperback copy) and the other form will be the paperback copy. The company I am publishing through (Createspace, which can be found here, if I haven't already posted a link, and you can publish many MANY things through them and NOT JUST BOOKS!!!) will also have the book available in its libraries (which might be a TINY bit cheaper if I get my way) and will also be putting it out through expanded distribution which will get it available to libraries, schools, small book stores, whoever. This might be the more expensive option though because it will be going through many people. And finally, I am going to be putting a few copies into my local bookstore (so those who know me personally are lucky) and I may be doing a book signing with them. Maybe. I have also had the suggestion proposed to send it to Costco and do book signings there. That might be interesting and it would definitely get my name out.

All in all, this is really making me super excited. I have never been this excited for my writing. And here I am! This is going to be awesome.

Have a great night!
Rose

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Updates. . . again. Sorry!

Alright, so the awesome news is it seems that the more time in between when I post things, the more of an audience I get. Which is a bitter sweet victory I guess. But it's still amazing!

Alright, so what it's sounding like is my editor and I have had many flaws in communication and due to the overwhelming obstacles on her plate currently, I am going to finish going through her edits and then publish. If my book is not at its fullest potential, oh well. I really am only publishing because I walked in on my dad trying to publish it himself. I never wrote this book expecting it to be the next J.K. Rowling top hit. I wrote it to get through junior high. Seriously. I took quotes, people, experiences from junior high and shoved them into a book and called it good. Lots of people like it though, surprisingly, so we're just going to deal with it.

It's appearing now, though, that here in my hometown everyone wants to know who I am. I have a small book shop that wants me to do a book signing after it's published. That means people out here will see my face. Eek! I guess I don't care. The only reason I have a pen name is to keep my school email clean from obnoxious publisher's emails. I haven't gotten any emails from anyone else so we'll see what happens when I publish. I probably would be using my real name if I wasn't a teenage girl. . . . oh well. Maybe in the future I'll write books with my actual name.

The audience for my books is getting bigger and bigger. I have 5 first draft copies floating around my hometown and the city(s) where my grandparents live. My audience for Beyond the Unknown has gone from my cousin (in fifth grade) all the way up to my 90 year old grandpa. Everyone in between as well. Lots of adults have read it and loved it and even more teenage readers have enjoyed it. I am very confident that as long as no one tries to find a theme or a meaning to my book (GASP! A book written without a purpose) people will enjoy it. Maybe I should copy Mark Twain's idea in "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and give a fair warning about the consequences of finding incorrect things in my book. . .

Anyway, thank you all for being so willing to keep up with this. :) Hope to publish and hear from you all soon!