This week I sent my final re-write of my first novel to my proof reader.  Now, on face value this doesn’t sound like a big deal. It is a big deal because I started the first draft of this story riding across the country by car with my daughter to Maine. I completed the first draft in 30 days during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). It took me five years with help from my writers’ critique group, a professional editor, and several beta readers, to get this book in shape for a proof reader.

This is only one step towards the journey to publication. I went to classes on book covers, marketing your book, researched highways of the roads taken by my main character in the mid 1960s. Of course, clothing, automobiles, guns, restaurants, food choices, and hotels needed validation.

Warning: I learned early in my writing venture that even if you get an agent and an agent gets you a publishers, it can take from one to two years before your book is published.

The decision on the method of publication took me two years of agonizing research. The research and reading overwhelmed me:  traditional publishing and self-publishing, so many contracts with very fine print to read, talking to authors who published independently, talking to authors who retained agents, pitching my book, submitting it to publishers.  After much deliberation, I decided to become an ‘Indie Author.’

I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Resources:

National Novel Writing Month