Upcoming Blog Series: Behind The Scenes in Being Published

As many of you know, I sold my now-titled Initium series to Glass House Press in later 2016. I knew from the beginning I wanted to share as much as I could about this whole process, what it entails, my reactions and feelings — just so you all would have an idea of what it looks like when you get your awesome books deals (if you’re going the traditional route, of course!).

In my effort to be organized and pretend like I know what I’m doing, I’ve decided to create a blog series. It will be called “Published: Behind the Scenes,” and at least one blog post a month on AwakeDragon will be solely dedicated to detailing all the details I can describe (

I don’t have an agent, so this is me and my publisher, one on one. Hopefully, in all these posts, you’ll get a glimpse into what to expect — and maybe know how to improve right now in what you’re doing, based on my experience.

Needless to say, this is going to be a LONG series. It will, at the very least, last throughout 2017, and probably through most of 2018. Just based off of the first few months I’ve had this contract, I’m going to guess this series I will cover a broad variety of topics:

• developmental editing
• copyediting
• structural editing
• stylistic editing
• (repeat: editing, Editing, EDITING)
• marketing
• branding
• author platforms
• book launching
• debuting terrors
• handling criticism
• improving as a writer

I also have a feeling that some months there may not be that much to say. As many of you already know (or guess), publishing is a looooonnnnnnng process. I’m just now starting to realize why. Everything takes so much longer than you expect!

Some of it will be diary-like. Some of it may be more technical. And I’m sure that my experience is going to differ from other’s experiences. My publisher is a small publisher focusing on intense, high-quality literature — I love their vision and what I think they can do for me. Small publishers have more time to spend with authors, helping and cultivating them. Smaller publishers depend on authors more for marketing and such. This is going to vary if you’re picked up by a bigger publisher, or have an agent. (Even within the same publisher I’m sure experiences will be different) I want to share my experience for fun and for reference; but I’m not saying everyone’s journey will be like mine.

Okay, and finally: to keep all these posts organized, I’ve done a few things. All posts will be linked at the bottom of this post, so they’re all in one place. All posts will link back to this post, so everything else can be found. Also, I’ve set up a new category dedicated to these posts, which can be found on the righthand side of this blog that will take you to said posts. Lastly, I may even create a new page that can be accessed from the menu at the top of AwakeDragon, so it’s just that much easier to click and find.

What do you think? Is everyone excited? I’m excited!

Posts:

January 2017

February 2017

March 2017

April 2017

May 2017 (and June and July)

August 2017 (Update! And the beginnings of cover art…)