On Wednesday, April 26, I finished the latest work-in-progress, a fantasy romance (more fantasy than romance with this one) clocking in at 93,561 words. This manuscript took me four months to draft.

I do mean “draft.” For those new to the whole publishing thing, writing the story is the easy part. It’s fun part. After the writer vomits the rough draft onto paper or the document file, editing begins. There’s a saying: The first draft is for the author; the second draft is for the editor.

After taking a deep breath and hoisting an adult beverage in celebration of finishing that particular brain dump, it’s time for a brief rest to let the mind recharge. Then comes the first round of editing: self-editing, to be precise. Like some authors, I do tend to edit as I write, so writing the first draft isn’t necessarily as onerous as it might otherwise be, but it does make the drafting process longer.

Therefore, beginning soon after finishing the rough draft, I read through the manuscript and run it through grammar checking software. I correct the errors I see—by no means all of them—and note the glaring plot holes I left behind. When I finish that, I have a second draft. Next, I address the plot holes and other areas that require substantial and substantive revision and/or rewriting. When I finish that, I have a third draft. Then comes a final review of the third draft to catch those small glitches and fix them. Ergo, I have a fourth draft.

The editor gets the fourth draft.

It’s a lot of work and it’s the process I advise authors use to ensure their editors receive content that’s not raw and unfinished. Giving your editor reasonbly polished work has two benefits:

1. You get better value from your editor who can focus on more substantive issues than correcting typos and grammar errors.
2. Your manuscript requires fewer rounds of professional editing, therefore costing the author less money.

Here’s another thing authors need to remember: editing and promotion take time. This requires knowing how to set reasonable deadlines.

• Book promotion launches around 30 to 45 days before the book’s release date.
• The marketing team needs 30 days to put together a marketing strategy. The front cover design is needed for marketing.
• Cover design takes at least a week, if not two weeks. Full cover (front, spine, back) design cannot be completed until the book has been formatted.
• Book formatting takes at least a week, if not longer.
• Schedule at least a month for editing and proofreading.  (This means the author must work promptly and quickly.)

The upshot, the author has to have a file ready for the editor at least two months before the book launches. More time is better.

So, going by my own countdown, I have actually not budgeted sufficient time for the release of Champion of the Twin Moons. This may require the release date, currently set for June 25 (my 35th wedding anniversary) to be pushed back to mid-July.

We’ll see how fast we can get things done.

While I’m waiting for the editor to work her magic, I’ll get started on the next story with a goal of releasing it at the end of October.

#writinglife #author #hollybargo

Festival season in Ohio has begun.

Ohio has the good fortune to be saturated with fairs, festivals, and other events throughout the year, but spring is when things really start rockin’. I participated in my first event, the Jackson City Book Fair, in late March. The Missing Falls Brewery Spring Bazaar was my second.

Missing Falls Brewery is in Akron, near Cleveland in northeastern Ohio. I sampled their brown ale while participating as a vendor at their spring craft fair: it’s pretty good. That’s one advantage of going to privately held events like this: the opportunity to sample craft brews.

As ususal, I attended with my best friend, @Cindra Phillips, of C. R. Ranch Creative. She’s an artist. Around half the paintings we displayed (and offered for sale) at the event were hers.

The weather did not cooperate: chilly, raining, blustery. We found the location without any wrong turns; the drive from my place took about three hours. Upon finding an entrance with a ramp for carting all our stuff, we soon located our assigned table. Set-up took around 30 minutes. All vendors received warnings to “build UP” not “build OUT” their displays. Cindra and I pushed the boundaries by placing our display boxes filled with paintings in front of our table. They didn’t stick out too much, we thought.

The event opened at 12:00 p.m. The vendor room was filled; I only noticed one empty vendor table. Vendors filled the rooms and overflowed into the warehouse area. Our table was at the end of the row next to the women’s restroom. Any woman needing to use the facilities was forced to walk in front of our table, so that was good exposure.

Attendance was light. Cindra learned that the event was the brewery’s second; the first having been held in November 2022. The third will be held in November 2023. The brewery also reserved marketing efforts to social media. That was not unexpected. Vendors were asked to spread the news via their social networks. I didn’t know how many actually complied, but I know that I did. I couldn’t have said that my marketing efforts were in any way effective, but I hoped that perhaps a few people were intrigued enough to attend an event that they might not have otherwise known about.

Attendance dropped off around 3:00 p.m. and began picking up slightly about 5:00 p.m. During the “dead time,” vendors started preying on one another, trying ot sell to each other. It happens at most events during the lulls between busy-ness.

The upshot? I made enough in sales in books and paintings to recoup my hard costs: the vendor registration fee and lunch. Cindra recouped her lunch expense, but not her mileage. (IRS mileage reimbursement would have exceeded $350. I don’t ask Cindra about her expense claims, because they’re none of my business.) She did trade a painting for a bracelet offered by one of the jewelry vendors, but I’m not sure whether I’d call that a sale.

By the way, the pizza there is pretty darned good. We also appreciated having lunch delivered to our “booth” space.
With few potential customers wandering the aisles, a few vendors closed up shop and departed before 5:00 p.m. We waited until 5:30 p.m. before packing everything up. (The event officially concluded at 6:00 p.m.)

On the drive back, we discussed our impressions and whether we’d sign up for another such event and decided our sample size wasn’t large enough to decide against going back. So, we intend to register for the next Missing Falls Spring Bazaar in 2024 in the hope that the event will have gotten more recognition and better traction among the locals.

#henhousepublishing #festivalseason #craftfair #craftbrew

Over the weekend I cracked 70,000 words on the latest work-in-progress which will be the fifth book in my Twin Moons Saga, Champion of the Twin Moons. I anticipate the book to hit approximately 90,000 words.

To coordinate with my marketing team’s efforts, that means I’ve got to finish the draft by May 1. That means writing another 20,000 words of good content in that time. That’s not easy. Not only must I produce that much content, but I must also make sure the content makes sense. A rough draft that’s nonsensical needs to be rewritten, and I don’t have time for that.

Once my marketing team has the rough draft, I’ll have a couple of weeks to review it, self-edit, and revise. Then it will go to my editor who will work her magic to help me deliver something worthy of public consumption.

When the editor returns my manuscript dripping with virtual red ink—that always happens—I’ll revise the manuscript. I never blindly accept the editor’s suggestions. I review each and every recommended change and accept most of them. I’m the author and it’s my story. In that same vein, I advise those clients for whom I edit never to blindly accept the changes I suggest in their manuscripts.

Once I revise per the edits, I will submit the manuscript to the editor a second time. The second round of editing focuses mainly on proofreading.

A lot of new authors don’t understand the editing process. It’s one a once-and-done activity, it’s a process. At the very least, editing requires two rounds: a round of substantive editing and a round of proofreading. Most manuscripts need more. They either need a round of developmental editing, then line editing, then copyediting, and finally proofreading. Most indie authors can’t afford that “more.” That’s were editors like me come in: we combine the first three types of editing. It generally saves the author some money and may reduce the editor’s passes through the manuscript to what most of my clients opt for:

• An initial round of deep, intensive editing that always results in revision
• A second, lighter round of editing mosly focused on copy editing
• A final round of proofreading.

Here’s hint: the indie author can save himself (or herself) a lot of money by making sure the manuscript is as good as he (or she) can get it before it goes to the editor.

So, wish me luck, because I’ve got a lot of writing to do in the next couple of weeks.