Many years ago I wrote a book titled "With a Little Faith". It was in fact my first book, and though I can't say today that I like the book, I don't hate it either. I made so many mistakes it's pathetic. I didn't know squat from squit when it come to what I was supposed to do; my submission representative was not experienced in her job either, so she couldn't give me any direction. I didn't know how she was supposed to handle the project so I just assumed that it was going as planned or expected. OH MY GOODNESS, the book sucked. I made errors upon errors. I counted I think close to 70 either misspelled words, comma needs, and no-needs, and then there was the run-on sentences from HELL. This book, content-wise was also lacking. I was so angry at the time I wrote it that the book appears to be more or less a husband-bashing book. I could call it that and probably sell more copies. After the first two editions of me pulling it, rewriting it, reformatting it, and just overhauling it completely, I just stopped publication entirely on the damn thing. I won't savage it, it is what it is, which is trash, but I own it. It's mine.
I went through Xlibris Publishing when I wrote my first three books. I was still, believe it or not, after several experiences, not that good at figuring out what it was that I'm supposed to say or do when it comes to publishing. I guess I was just under the guise of thinking you hand over the manuscripts, pay your fees, and then cross your fingers. NOPE...you need to be on top of every tiny detail, because if you are not, they will fill in the blanks for you, and you'll have crap to promote. That's what I had with the first three books I wrote. I will say this, I did manage to have all three of those books printed in other languages, so there's that, but I will not make the same rookie and/or sophomoric mistakes I made the first several times. I am with Xlibris again, but this time I'm the one calling the shots.
I went with the more marketable package which for new authors can cost around $2500.00, but because I have been with the publisher at least three times, I was able to negotiate the same custom package for $1200.00 and I'll receive the same quality and service as anyone would who pay the higher costs. Here's a thought, if you're going to go through Xlibris, find Sid Wilson, and tell him I sent you. Ask for the custom package at my discount and see if he'll do it for you. It means he'll lose a bit in commissions, but he's a really good sale rep and does this so often he may be able to wing that for you. It's worth a shot. If he can't do it, at least you tried.
I signed the contract today, paid the fees, and now I'm over here going through the paperwork trying to come up with a "teaser" for the book. I have to write about 150 words describing what takes place. It's like drinking from the proverbial firehose! You can't condense a 400-page book into 150 words all that easily other than to start off with "Where there's love there's a way" which I guess is the motto of every romance book, right? I mean, one would think so. There are historic settings and events, and there are sex scenes and fights. There is a murder, a cover-up, a few trips back and forth between two major cities, and of course, there are men in and out of their kilts. You can't have a Highland romance book without that!
I will say I was a bit bummed to find out there wasn't a category in their genre selection for "Highland Historical Romance". I will have to call it a Fiction/Fantasy book. I didn't want to. I still don't want to. I'm not going to. It's a Highland Historical Romance book! You've got your Highlands, you've got your history, and you've certainly got your romance. Fun times. I have three more chapters to write and then I can fluff, stuff, format, rewrite, add, and tweak it, but then I'm turning over the manuscript and leading the entire project step by step. I'm not about to cross my fingers and hope for the best on this one. NO WAY. It's going to be a very picky picky process and if the good folks at Xlibris don't like that, (which they will) I won't give them the next several books I plan on writing in 2023. I'm a busy busy girl, I can tell you that.
That's it. I just wanted you to know that I choose a publisher. I'm working part-time at a really fun job that I can do from home so that I can write at least one chapter a day on whatever project I'm writing. If there are about 330 more days left in the year and I'm writing about one chapter a night, taking off maybe 20 days in the year, that's 300-310 chapters, and each book has about 30-33 chapters so yeah, I'm looking at 9-12 books this year. CRAZY!! Let's see there's this book, the Murder Book, the follow-up to this book, the follow-up to the Murder Book, the 2nd and 3rd Blog Books, another Poetry book (they never sell, it's just so I can be really cool after I die) and then I'll have the humor novel 1211, as well as maybe a third romance book that I think I could squeeze out of just using the over of abundance notes I took on this book and then didn't use the notes I came up with. I overdo it. I always do. I'm an overdoer.
Have a great weeeeeeeek. BYE!!
Photo Credit: Stephen Holman - Tulsa World.
(My kids were so adorable in 2005, huh?)
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