Deb
asked me to address some questions that might help others when they go through
the publishing process the first time. I think this is a great idea. I could
have used some answers from those who preceded me, but I was so new to writing
and publishing fiction that I didn’t even know what to ask.
Anyway,
here are my answers to Deb’s
Questions
Question: What was it like
going through the various stages of editing?
My
first and second young adult books (Sliding on the Edge and The Princess of LasPulgas) were traditionally published, and I was fortunate to have a
fantastic editor for both. She had twenty-eight years of experience in the
publishing business, and she was a published author whom they hired to acquire
and edit books for them. She suggested one change in the structure of the novel
Sliding on the Edge, which I did
because it was a great suggestion and because she knew what she was doing. Also
the change was a matter of writing an Epilogue,
which took me only about half an hour because I knew exactly what it had to
say. Why I didn’t write it before
is a mystery to me, but as I already explained, I was very much the novice.
With
these two books, I did three rounds of line edits using Track Changes. The
goal was to have no comments left in the document. For Sliding on the Edge, I estimate I spent a total of 30 hours
stretched over two weeks. It’s
hard to tell exactly how much time I spent on this, because I had questions,
and after asking them, I had to wait until the editor got back to me. With The Princess of Las Pulgas there were
only a few edits and they took about three hours in one sitting—well, I took some
short breaks. Between communications with her, I remember a lot of waiting and
worrying. But I do that about anything I’m uncertain about.
With
Alligators Overhead, the book I
published on my own, I’d asked an editor
friend to do the final edits for me, but she was called away on an emergency,
so I foolishly did those final edits myself. The first edition had errors, and
I was horrified. I quickly fixed those, but hated that my first Indie book
initially went out with at least ten typos. Never again. If I go Indie for
another book, it will be professionally edited up to the publication.
Question: I’d like to know how
you went about deciding on a cover,
or did your publisher help you with that, too? Did they find you the artist
for the cover, or were you on your own?
For my first traditionally published book, the
publisher chose the artist and then sent me three concepts for the cover. I
asked friends and family to weigh in, and we all chose the same one.
Personally, I love my cover. Sliding on
the Edge has the idea of a girl in crisis and alone. It has the horses and
the rural setting of the story. It’s not sexy or glam like some YA
fiction, but the story isn’t
a sexy one, and the only glam in it is a beautiful horse, so the cover made
sense to me. For The Princess of Las Pulgas, the publisher presented the cover already chosen. I had no input.
Question: What headaches did
you suffer, what surprises came up, and what, if anything,
went easier than you expected?
The
editing was a bit boring, but I did it chunks. I had to chunk it because if I
didn’t, I’d make more
mistakes. I estimate my on-task time for each editing period was about an hour.
Then I’d take a break.
Choosing the cover was painless. The whole pre-publishing process was
relatively easy. It was the post-publishing process that gave me headaches.
During
my debut launch, Sliding on the Edge
didn’t arrive in time
for a major bookstore event. Then when book two was published, I arranged to
present a paper at a Florida National Council of Teachers of English, so I could
sign The Princess of Las Pulgas.
Those books didn’t arrive, so I
wound up signing Sliding.
One
thing most new authors should expect is to pay for a lot of travel expenses. As
it was, I didn’t mind paying to go
to this event because I wanted to go and had planned to anyway. The issue was
that the publisher didn’t support me as an
author who was just starting out.
To
read more about that experience, see THE WRITE GAME. So, I guess you could say this was the time
the real headaches happened, and I was constantly surprised by the publisher’s choices. They
wouldn’t do a paperback or
an eBook. The only format they made available was a hardcopy. They wouldn't
create the “Look Inside” feature that Amazon has as a marketing tool. My hands were
tied until I asked for and got my rights back.
Question: What did they tell
you might be your sales outlook/projection (or do they
stay
out of that), and do they offer any promotion help or at least ideas?
Their
job is to choose titles they think will sell, so I assume they had confidence
that my book would appeal to their readers because they paid me a healthy
advance for each book. PW would say my advances were “good,” especially for a
new author. This publisher was going for a contemporary/realistic niche in the
market. They didn’t do speculative or
dystrophic fiction, so I think they hoped to carve out sales from those who
weren't interested in angels and fairies and zombies. I had nothing to do with sales
projections, but a lot to do with marketing. I just didn’t understand how
much at the outset. It was never stated how much or exactly what I was expected
to do. The publisher suggested I hop on Facebook and Twitter, and that was
about it.
When
I realized I had much more work to do if I expected Sliding on the Edge to do anything, I contacted bookstores,
libraries, and local schools. My best support came from my local newspaper, and
articles they printed netted me several book signings in my town. Later those
book signings led to annual writing workshops and high school visits. I was
building my network in person, while I was building it online. This paid off for
my second and third books, because I had the contacts and they emailed me to
visit their schools or appear at book signings.
The
publisher held two book signings for me. The one in Florida that I’ve already
mentioned and a second signing in L.A. at the ALA Conference. In L.A. they had a booth,
and I met many authors in person that I had only contacted via social media. It
was a good experience in that I visited a lot of different publishing houses
and got a sense of their books and their style.
Question: How much time goes
into your own marketing of your books, and is it more or less than you
expected, and how much time does that leave for writing?
With
book one, I was unprepared for marketing and all that it required. I blogged a
bit and I signed up for Facebook and Goodreads (which still confuses the heck
out of me). I even started Tweeting, something that baffles my family. “You do what?”
But
I was behind the learning curve on marketing, so I didn’t do a great job,
and I was hacking away at book two, The
Princess of Las Pulgas, so what had been a wonderful writing experience
with book one, turned into a real job with this second one. I was up at four in
the morning to write until at least seven, then doing social media and trying
to find time for the rest of my life. Sleep would have been nice.
Question: What would you do
differently in the future?
I
would be more savvy at marketing. I would spend more time building my network
of followers and concentrate on how I want to be seen by readers. I think I
would invest in a truly good marketing firm. But realistically, back then when
I was dealing with book one, I didn’t know if I’d sell that book. I
was paddling in a very large sea without a clue about how deep it was or how
far I might go. It seemed ill advised to spend so much money before I had an
inkling about how my book would be received. With book two I’d at least found a
paddle for that boat and I had something of a following online. I was being
asked to contribute to anthologies, so I did that and I garnered more attention
for this second book. I paid for two ads on FB (they did nothing for my sales).
I did a giveaway on Goodreads and started getting good reviews. I’d do more on
Goodreads if I had it to do again.
Since
that first publisher, I’ve already moved
through a different publishing experience. As I said, with my middle grade novel, Alligators Overhead, I went Indie and used
Outskirts Press. I chose them based on a friend’s recommendation. They provided
editing (this was about the same experience as with the traditional publisher),
interiors (dingbats and fonts to enhance the look of the page) that were
interesting, photo galleries for me to choose the basic cover, then they had
artists enhance the cover to suit my story. You have marketing options with
them as well.
The
downside is it’s expensive, but
the upside is that when you don’t
know anything about how to publish a book, you can learn. I didn’t have time to do
everything myself, so Outskirts Press was a solution at the time.
My
third young adult book has just been accepted by a small press, Evernight Teen.
So this next experience will be different again.
Double Negative will come out as
an eBook, then if sales support it, they will do a POD paperback. I like this
idea and it makes me think this publisher has a smart business plan.
They
have a strong social media presence, and they will help with sending the book out
to reviewers. They will also contact bloggers and do some online promo which
looks like giveaways and contests linked to some of their other books.
I
will do a blog tour on my own, and I’ve already started
asking for help. Since the pub date is July, I’m scrambling to pull everything
together fast. Fortunately, I now know a little more about what marketing is
expected of me and how to do it.
While
they’ve suggested some
marketing strategies, they’ve
not given me a specific “must do” list outside of posting
their logo on my website, visiting their FB page for authors regularly and
contacting reviewers.
I
just completed the editing process. Again, they use Track Changes and there
were few edits, mostly at punctuation level. I seem to forget commas pretty
regularly.
C. Lee McKenzie is a native Californian who grew up in a lot
of different places, then landed in the Santa Cruz Mountains where she lives
with her family and miscellaneous pets. She writes most of the time, gardens
and hikes and does yoga a lot, and then travels whenever she can.
She takes on modern issues that today's teens face in their
daily lives. Her first young adult novel, Sliding on the Edge, which
dealt with cutting and suicide was published in 2009. Her second, titled The
Princess of Las Pulgas, dealing with a family who loses everything and must
rebuild their lives, came out in 2010. Her short stories appear in the
anthologies, The First Time and Two and Twenty Dark Tales. In 2012, her
first middle grade novel, Alligators
Overhead, came out. This year Double
Negative, her young adult story about a functionally illiterate teen, will be
out as an eBook.