Tag Archives: ARC

Road to Publication #24: – The tinglies are here, and I’m dreading when the slapping will start.

Posted on November 21, 2012 | 21 comments

Yeah, this was supposed to post Monday. I’m a delinquent. I just can’t keep up right now. Ever been there?

The funny thing is I almost went to bed without posting this one, too… and All I’ve done tonight is blog posts for guest appearances. Funny–I forgot my own.

Back to the Road to Publication …. I just received another email from someone who’s read an Arc (Advance Reader Copy) of Make Believe. They said that “Last Winter Red” was their favorite story “by far” and they wanted to do an interview with me. Can I hear a squee?

Now, I am not vain enough to think that the other authors are not getting similar email responses to their own stories…. But this is the third response like this I’ve received, and it feels good. So so so good.

But creeping in the back of my brain is knowledge that the day will eventually come where someone will pick up the Make Believe Anthology and love every story EXCEPT mine.

It’s inevitable, isn’t it? Not every story will resonate with everyone. I listen to other authors complain about reviews… and I’m trying to tell myself that I won’t read any reviews at all.

Ugh. Maybe you guys can screen them for me and just tell me about the good ones?

I don’t know. I’m pretty thick skinned, and I do not expect EVERYONE to like my story. I really don’t. I just hope when that dreaded day comes that they have a little mercy and chock it up to “this is not my cup of tea” rather than “this chic stinks beyond reason”.

How do you think you will react to your reviews?

For those of you who have gone through this already, how do you handle the good and the bad?

21 Comments

Posted in Road to Publication

Tagged Advance copy, Advance Reader Copy, ARC, Fiction, first publication, Online Writing, Reading, road to publication, Romance

Road to Publication #20: Setting up the Blog Tours

Posted on October 15, 2012 | 26 comments

OMIGOSH, my head is spinning. Seriously, it is.

I started a few weeks ago, setting up my own dates for the blog tour for the “Make Believe” Anthology. Then, after the Arcs went out, all of the sudden requests started coming in from people who contacted J.Taylor Publishing asking for interviews.

I’m really glad that I took someone’s advice and found the calendar feature in my email program. I started making appointments for the different days in December… but December is filling up pretty quickly.

I also have to wiggle in a blog tour for Connect the Dots, coming out from Still Moments Publishing in their “For the Love of Christmas” Anthology the day after the “Make Believe” Anthology releases.

It looks like I’m going to have to double book dates – talking about Connect the Dots on one Web Site, and Last Winter Red on another.

Now, I’m starting to pull my hair out because I have a list of people who I “Cyber know” who I wanted to ask to host the blog tour, and all these dates are filling up fast.

I know, I know, just smack me. These are good problems.

I am starting to feel what I’ve heard other authors talk about in the past… Marketing is a full time job, and detracts from your writing.

I had all these lofty goals for when I would finish and submit Fire in the Woods, but they are falling by the wayside.

It’s true what you hear… this really is hard work.

What do you think… Do you hear about books on blogs? Have you / would you buy a book after hearing about it on a blog? What would make you interested in buying an anthology?

The Blog Tour (writerswritedaily.wordpress.com)
Blog Tour Stop: Darkest Sins (megancashmanbooks.wordpress.com)

26 Comments

Posted in Road to Publication

Tagged anthology, ARC, Blog, blog tours, Book, Christmas, December, interviews, marketing, publish, Tours, Writers Resources

Road to Publication #18: Reviewing the ARCs, OH NO!

Posted on October 1, 2012 | 36 comments

Holy Crud. This is not happening. I just found out why you DON’T want to have two works being published at exactly the same time… and even worse… by two different publishers.

I was stunned this morning when the first round edits for Connect the Dots came through. I thought I would have another week. I have two weeks to finish the ARC edit (the very last edit) of Last Winter Red AND finish the first round edit for Connect the Dots.

Okay. Breathe. It’s all good. This is a great problem to have. People are going to spit at you for having this problem. Take a deep breath. Chocolate helps. Good. Relax.

Okay. No problem. I can do this.

So… back to Last Winter Red. I started reading it on Kindle last night. I made a lot of highlights on the ARC with the handy Kindle Notes feature.

The reason for some of my notes is because my writing style has changed a lot in the last few months since I worked on Last Winter Red, and things don’t seem right to me anymore.

I did find a missing quotation mark at the end of a sentence. Easy fix (I hope).

What is odd, is every once in a while I stopped and said “Is that what he said?” or “Did I write that?” or “Wait. That makes absolutely no sense.”

I’m wondering if I even wrote some of these things, or if they were edited to the point of losing “something”. I want to go through the whole thing, make notes, and then go back to my original copy and see if I need to smack myself upside the head for past mistakes.

Maybe I do. At this point, I’m not sure what happened.

Either way, I think some more changes are in order.

What makes me cringe over this is that I could have made these changes months ago. I am tucking this away as a “lesson’s learned” though.

I did have a bad feeling about not reviewing the full version before it went to copy editing. You know that deep clawing pit-in-your-stomach feeling when you think you lost control of something?

To make sure this doesn’t happen again, I MADE SURE before I signed the contract with Still Moments Publishing for “Connect the Dots” that I WOULD have a chance to review a final before it went to final editing. Not only that, I will get to see a FULL VERSION as it stands through each round of the editing process.

For a control freak like me, this is a huge relief… because I know I will not be down to the wire and fixing errors I would have seen earlier.

This is not J.Taylor Publishing’s fault either. It is the way they work. All publishers are different, and as an author, I need to be ready for this.

What I need to do now is finish reading and marking. Then I want to go back again reading carefully for spelling/punctuation errors, and then I need to document and changes necessary on a spreadsheet.

I need to do this within one week, so I can devote the next week to Connect the Dots.

Once again, sleep may become optional.

My Book Is Ready for Publishing (muponisi.wordpress.com)
Self-Editing (niaforrester.com)
Self-Editing For Self-Published Fiction (advancedfictionwriting.com)
So what does an editor do, exactly? (heydeadguy.typepad.com)
effective editing: it’s not terminal or is it? (roxieh.wordpress.com)

36 Comments

Posted in Road to Publication

Tagged ARC, Arts, Business, Communications, connect the dots, Copy editing, copyediting, critique, editing, Fiction, getting published, Kindle, publish, Publishing, Review, self publishing, Short Stories, Short story, Writers Resources, writing, Writing and Editing, Writing help

Road to Publication #17: Getting the ARCs for final approval

Posted on September 24, 2012 | 31 comments

Why is my blood pressure up today? The Advance Release Copies (ARCs) for the Make Believe Anthology have been released.

They arrived while I was at work, and unable to download them. I see a flurry of “Yay” and “high-fives” from a few of the other authors during the day as they review their own, and see the other author’s work for the first time.

They seemed excited.

I’m not excited.

Excited is definitely not the word for it. I think nauseous covers it about right.

I think part of my problem is that the first 500 words were recently released. I found a sentence in the wrong place. My heart sank. I contacted the publisher, and they said to go ahead and fix it for the first page release, and to make sure I fix it when I got the ARCs. Whew!

But now I’m worried about what else I might find. Maybe I’m overreacting. I hope I’m overreacting.

Okay. Enough stalling. I’m going to download it to my Kindle now.

Okay. Wow. So cool to see it for the first time. I need to fix any errors in mine in the next two weeks and return it. So… sorry ladies, but I will read yours later.

I flip to my story, and my gaze hovers over the cover page. Yep. That’s my name. Feels good.

I flip to the next page. Something’s wrong. Have you ever stared at something, not even read it, and known something was not right?

The formatting. Oh, crud. The Font in my title pages is important. It gives an emotional impact… a “feel” of being outside. They replaced it with a blocky, emotionless ruggedly bold text.

The first “first 500” that was sent to me to post on-line had the correct font. Hopefully this will be a simple fix.

Before I really get down to reading, I receive an email with the instructions on how to notify them of changes, and what kind of changes will be accepted. One phrase stood out.

“We won’t guarantee all your final changes will be made, but now is the last possible time for you to make them.”

Now my blood pressure is pumping because I never had the chance to “okay” a final completed version before it went to ARCs. I have no idea if the changes that I discussed with the editor “piece meal” were inserted correctly BEFORE it was sent to copy editing.