Behind the Scenes—12 tasks for book authors before the release

Before I was published in early 2014, I wished someone had told me all the little things that a book author must do between the time the manuscript undergoes editing and the finished book is released to the public.

Right now I have two books of my series about to release at once, and I’m acquainted with what to expect in the final weeks beforehand. But in the middle of it all, I thought—duh!—new authors out there might want to know, too.

Not everyone’s experience will be the same as mine, and I’m not taking into consideration either self-publishing or publishing by a big house, but here’s what I’ve learned the average author contracted by a small to mid-sized publisher should do.

1. Approximately six weeks or more before release: Make a list of trusted individuals who might read your book in advance and give an honest review on Amazon and Goodreads, and possibly elsewhere. Contact them as soon as possible and let them know when you expect an ARC (advanced reader/review copy) to be available in e-book or print, as the case may be. Then if they agree to read and review, don’t forget to send the book! (Your publisher may arrange advanced reading and reviews for your book, and you can scratch this one off your list.)
2. Approximately five weeks or more before release: Plan a launch party—actual, virtual, or both—and solicit help from family or friends to be with you for the duration of the party. Who do you wish to invite as guests? (Not every one of your 500 Facebook friends, because that doesn’t work.) Will you give away door prizes at an actual party and equally desirable and interesting giveaways at your virtual Facebook party? Start some lists of guests and giveaways for both types of parties. If you can schedule your Facebook party for the day of release, great. An actual party can come later.
3. Approximately four-and-a-half weeks before release: Purchase, gather, ask for donations of giveaways and/or door prizes for your parties. As much as possible, choose items related to your book or story. If you write YA, ask friends who are authors of YA if they’d like to donate their books to be part of your celebration.
4. Approximately four weeks before release: Give your final approval to the cover. I’m skipping the part beforehand when you and the publisher or designer discuss options back and forth for the design.
5. Approximately three-and-a-half weeks before release: Update your website, blog, Facebook author page, Twitter profile, LindedIn profile–and any other sites you use to promote yourself–with your final book cover image and a blurb about the book. This is when you might do a cover “reveal” on your personal Facebook page and Pinterest, too. Where applicable, include a link to your publisher’s site.
6. Approximately three weeks before release: Proof the galleys and make notes on a document in the manner requested by your editor or publisher, citing the number assigned to each line of the galleys that requires a correction or other change. The galleys were e-mailed to me, and that’s how my publisher asked me to handle corrections. (With my first publisher, there were no galleys. I proofed a print-on-demand paper copy that was shipped to me. )
7. Approximately two-and-a-half weeks before release: Proof the e-book, looking for formatting issues and any errors you missed in the galleys. My publisher preferred I make notes of changes on a Word document, citing the chapter and paragraph to direct her to the error.
8. Approximately two weeks before release: Start creating Tweets if you haven’t already, because you don’t want to rush to do that when near the finish line. Chances are you won’t write those sparkly Tweets when you’re under pressure. You can add the purchase links when they become available.
9. Approximately one-and-a-half weeks before release: Prepare text that you can copy and paste onto your Facebook event/party page as needed to remind guests and post information about giveaways. Remind assistants who will help you monitor the party, take notes, and keep lively comments going. You will need moral support during the Facebook event—and bathroom breaks.
10. Approximately one week or more before release: Announce your Facebook party wherever you choose. Send Facebook invitations. Tweet and blog about your upcoming release! Ask friends to re-post and retweet your information.
11. Approximately three or four days before release: Update or create your Amazon and Goodreads author pages for your new book. (You can create the Goodreads author page earlier than this, once you have an ISBN number for any of your books, but your publisher needs to list your book with Amazon before you update there (or create the author page if this is your first book).
12. Approximately one day before release: Set up purchase links on your website or blog so buyers can find where to buy your book online. Mention other places that readers might find or ask for your book. On your Facebook author page, use the Call-to-action button to direct visitors to where they can buy or learn more about your book. If you will be selling directly from your site, I assume you set that up months in advance but can activate it now.

I’m sure to have forgotten something, but please forgive any omission. If you wonder how I recalled what I did remember and when it happened—some of which I’m doing now or will do in the next couple of weeks—I keep a calendar. I recommend you do too, if only to look back and see all that you’ve accomplished!

What details would you like to know about anything I’ve mentioned? How about what I may have forgotten?

Is That You? or, How to Choose a Social Media Name

Image courtesy of morguefile.com free photos

If you are any type of writer or artist, you probably have created one or more of the following to promote yourself: blog, website, professional Facebook page, Twitter account.

How did you choose names for them?

As I’ve acquired friends and followers who are writers or book authors, I’ve met with confusion at times. Why would someone who writes and wants to be noticed and recognized choose different names for their various sites and accounts? (I ask this while posting on a blog named after one of my characters, but I have wondered if I made a huge error in judgment.)

Of course, if you own a site with content about a topic other than your books or art, the title might not necessarily include your name. But shouldn’t your name appear somewhere on the site? When I visit a blog by any title on any topic, I search for the owner(s) and author(s) of the posts. If I don’t find one right away–not even via the “about” tab–I tend not to follow. I mean, why should I trust what this anonymous person has to say?

I make it a point to “Like” my author friends’ Facebook author pages, but sometimes it’s so hard to find them! If a writer uses his real name (or close to it) as his author name, wouldn’t it make sense to title the author page with that name first? Then follow it by the word “author” or “writer” or “author of …” That way, someone can search by the person’s name first instead of guessing and typing variations of possible titles. When they type the author’s name in the search window, the author/writer page should pop up along with his personal page.

Some new authors use the title of their first book as the title of the Facebook page. That’s not really thinking ahead—or positively—because doesn’t any author want to publish more than one book? Sounds like he could end up with many pages to keep up with in the future. And unfortunately, some Facebook pages I’ve looked at don’t provide the author’s name anywhere at all. Huh? I’ve strained my eyes to read the author’s name on a book cover image to be sure I reached the right page. Some book titles are popular and found on numerous books.

I so appreciate an author using his name, in whole or in part, in his Twitter handle. That’s much easier to remember than a cute or clever handle, although when some of us joined Twitter, we weren’t sure what to do.

If you now have a Twitter handle different from the name under which you are published and also different from your blog or website name, and you are about to open an Instagram account, give the following some thought. I recently learned that it’s a good idea to use your real (or pen) name for Instagram so people can find you, and that it should match your Twitter handle. But if you plan to change your Twitter handle to your real (or pen) name, better to do it before you have a lot of followers and links to your Twitter account in places like your blog, website, and posts on other peoples’ sites. I think I’d leave mine alone rather than go through what I read one blogger had to go through to make the change.

Whew! There’s so much to learn about best practices in using social media for marketing, I struggle. I truly admire you guys who are experts at it.

Are you happy with the names you’ve created for yourself on social media? Have you tried to change any, and what degree of success did you experience?

A Fork, a Turn, and aTermination

When I began this blog, I committed to sharing with you my experiences and thoughts about my novel Bird Face and “its journey to publication.”

Recently that publication journey reached an unexpected fork in the road.

When my publisher made the decision to change direction away from novels for young people–and then later away from books altogether–and to publish literary magazines with a focus on poetry and nonfiction after 2016, I had to ask myself some hard questions.

Should Bird Face remain with this publisher for as long as possible and continue to earn royalties but receive no promotion? There was no chance of the sequel I’d written for Bird Face or a recently completed YA historical, The Other Side of Freedom, to be published there. Would I hurt my publication chances for those new books by staying put?

Should I begin to query other publishers for a new home for the original Bird Face as well as its sequel while still under contract with my original publisher? Should I query for the sequel only?

Should I provide an interested new publisher a concrete termination date for my current contract so that I can prove my intent?

I wasn’t able to find any information online either about my particular situation or about books in a series with two different publishers. A couple of friends in the writing and publishing world urged me to self-publish the Bird Face series, but I believed another publisher was out there somewhere that might be interested.

So I decided to discuss contract termination with my current publisher and to settle on a date we could agree upon.

Although other authors might not take the same course of action, I think I made the right choice. The decision would’ve been made for me in a year anyway. And now I am free to search for a new home for my books while retaining the right to self-publish any of them.

I don’t view this as a 180, or even a 90-degree turn as the image above implies, but rather a 45-degree turn. And one I hope to look back on a year from now as having been the best path to take.

Has your publishing journey taken an unexpected turn? How did it work out for you?

To Sequel or Not to Sequel

  I admire readers who are so dedicated to an author or a set of characters that they read every single book of a series, usually in order. My admiration for the author who creates such devoted readers knows no bounds.

Wendelin Van Draanen is one of my favorite authors of a series for tweens and teens. I’ll most likely complete her Sammy Keyes mysteries (18 books, I believe) because I thoroughly enjoyed the three I’ve read so far, though not in any order. In 2014, Ms. Van Draanen released her last book of the series, Sammy Keyes and the Kiss Goodbye. So maybe I’ll catch up before I die.

Perhaps you’re a fan of Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone “alphabet” mystery series: A is for Alibi through W is for Wasted (23, with only X, Y, and Z left to go, I believe). I’ve read a couple of them and would like to read others.

Before you think all I read is mystery, I’ve gotten into some Amish romance lately (only in books), reading a couple of novels from a couple of series by different authors. I enjoyed them very much, but to read a long series of Amish romance? I don’t know.

Some of Sarah Dessen’s YA books captured my interest for a while: Keeping the Moon (my favorite), What Happened to Goodbye (that one I didn’t like so much), and a few others. Some of Ms. Dessen’s novels seem like a series when they have the same setting and perhaps one familiar character—and yet sometimes not.

As I complete the sequel to Bird Face, I wonder about a number of things:

1. Whether it will find a publishing home—or agent representation and then a home.
2. Because the publisher of the original Bird Face will discontinue the company’s book publishing arm soon, whether a new publisher will be willing to republish that book and accept the sequel.
3. Whether most agents and publishers even want a series.
4. Whether readers of my first book will care if there’s a sequel.
5. Whether the sequel should be written so that it can be read independently without any knowledge of the first book or be read out of order.

Whether  you enjoy reading a series or not, what are your thoughts about sequels and series? If you have a favorite series, have you read it in order? Have you skipped one or two books in the series, and did it make any difference to you?