Some Go Softly

I’m so glad that we all agree that I shouldn’t be expected to make the book “work”. That is surely someone else’s job. Someone that won’t change each little thing and over-analyze, like I have been. I’ve done the hard part. I made some stuff up and put it ‘on paper’. Now to find an editor. The going rate appears to be a penny a word. It’s abstract accounting at best. Will there be more or less words when all is said and done? What if there’s a typo that makes one word two? Who are these people anyway? Am I going for quality or content? I can’t be over 60,000 words, so the price seems reasonable considering I don’t even know what I’ll get in return. What an adventure!

Next, submitting to publishers. There are a lot of little publishers. I’m going to try ‘going local’ first. Always a camaraderie-type thing. If no one in San Diego wants me, I can pretend I am local “Seattle” where I was working on the editing, or local “Austin” where I wrote the first book. Most publishers that I’ve found will accept a synopsis via email, which apparently is unusual? I’ll take it. My goal is to start finding them and getting myself out there. I think I know how to sell, but this is different, it’s personal. I think having a place to ask for help (here) and admit that I’m lost is a great big help.

There are a couple reasons I’m waiting to explore self publishing. One is the husband, who takes the doing it myself idea as a last resort that is only acceptable if no one else wants my book (in my mind in that case why bother…). It’s going to cost more, of course, since I would want to use every resource they offer to give myself a best chance, and so few books make it big that go that way, and I’m sitting here thinking I have something good to work with.

We’ll see…

The story so far: Last November, I wrote a book. This November, I wrote another book. A much better book. Each of them are just over 50,000 words and were finished within a month. I spent the past year editing the first book. I got to Chapter 4, of 12 chapters. I asked for help. Not so much. Editing does not equal writing, it is a lot less fun and how do you ever stop editing yourself? Yawn.

Now I’m over the first book, a romance-y just trying to get published kind of a thing, and obsessed with my second book, a Fear and Loathing crazy-style marriage of good writing and interesting action. I know I’m a writer, that these books could sell. In what form? Probably an edited one.

What do I do? Keep editing the first book? Jump to the second? Hire a real life editor? Hire an agent? Burn them both? (The books, not the editor and agent…) Send them out as is?

I’d like your thoughts.