Okay, so you found a publisher for your great American horror novel and you have a release date. Most of the editing is done and now maybe you’re just missing the finished cover and copy edits.
In the meantime, what do you do?
As you probably already know, especially if you’ve been through this before as I have, the work is really just beginning.
The past couple of weeks I have spent feverishly putting together a new website, one that looks professional and will hopefully make me look professional. I put in lots of links to other sites, mainly authors and publishers that I know and like, and pages concerning my outside interests, such as music.
I also like to get people involved with the process of publishing, especially since a lot of my fans are writers, which is why I started this blog. I know that I always looked for blogs like this when I was just starting out. I love to see things from behind the scenes.
I am also revising a manuscript for a young adult novel I have been writing for the past few months and will have that done, soon. Then I will have to begin the whole process of finding a publisher over again. Yay!
I have also begun to look at the various aspects of marketing my new thriller, LILITH. My publisher, DarkFuse, has an excellent marketing director named Dave Thomas, and I know I will be working closely with him, so there will be a lot he can help me with. But as an author, I am also responsible for selling my book. I need to find the best options for reaching my target audience by using tools such as blogs, message boards and advertisements, and go from there.
I also do freelance writing for my local newspaper and other things, so that keeps me running, too.
Then, there is family. Got to cut out time for them somewhere along the way, right? Since I work from home, it seems like it’s usually the other way around—I’m trying to cut out time to work!
So as you can see, it is possible to stay busy while waiting for something else to work its way through the process. But waiting isn’t so bad. After all, I’m doing what I love, so what more could I ask for?