As some of you may know, I recently sold
my debut, RUNNING ON EMPTY, to Tulip Romance—Spencer Hill Press’s newest
imprint. (For more info on that journey, Bethany Griffin interviewed me here on
YA Fusion a couple months ago.) The sale was finalized June 12, 2013 and the
release date is scheduled for November 25, 2013. Yes—only 5 ½ short months from
the sale date! Talk about a crash course!J
So for those of you who are pre-sale or
have recently sold, I thought I’d offer some insight on what happens next…
First
of all, I advise anyone who is hesitant about joining the twenty-first century
with the whole social media thing, to ease into this world BEFORE the sale!! I’m
pretty sure I was one of the last hold-outs on planet earth to join Facebook
and I still find it quite overwhelming. With the help and guidance of one of my
amazing critique partners and my techno-savvy nephew, I now have a
website/blogsite—on Blogger (still learning terms). I’ve also had to learn to
maneuver Goodreads and link my blog etc. Thankfully, my smart writer friends
wore me down and convinced me to join the Twitter-verse a few months before I
sold. Oh, did I forget to mention that I’m one of the regular contributors to
YA Fusion as well…
Needless to say, there’s a lot to learn
about social media. If only I’d listened sooner to those who forged the path
ahead of me… Learn from my mistakes; the sooner you master social media, the
sooner you’ll have time for what comes next…
Second word of advice: it takes awhile to
receive that first editor letter so use your time wisely. After you take a few
moments to let the happy settle in—all those hours, months, years that it’s
taken to turn your dream into a reality deserves to be celebrated—then jump back into work!
Start that next project if you haven’t
already. It will keep you distracted from worrying about what kind of revisions
you might be facing or imagining scenarios of your editor calling you up and
saying they’ve changed their mind about buying your book, or wondering with
each passing day that you don’t hear any news if all of this sale-business was just
another story you’ve conjured in your head…
Third: the editor’s letter; deep breaths.
When you receive round one revisions, take a couple of days to thoroughly
absorb the good and the bad before you dive in. This can be overwhelming at
first; I had no clue about how I was going to fix some of the things that
needed to be fixed, or added. I started with smaller things and things I knew
exactly how to fix while my mind worked consciously and subconsciously on how
to fix some of the bigger problems.
Revising for an editor was incredibly
hard work and I put in MANY sixteen-hour days over the course of my month-long,
first round revisions, but I finally pulled it off. After many restless nights,
lots of hair pulling, nail-biting, and random dry-heaving, I am happy say to
that after adding approximately seventy pages, tons of revisions, and even
cutting a character, I was happier than ever with my book and finally managed
to push the SEND button, (not to be confused with the EASY button.)J
More anxious waiting, then came ROUND
TWO… three more pages of edit notes that my editor lovingly called “minor”. I could probably think of a stronger word…J After another grueling week of sifting
through nearly a 400 page manuscript and stretching my brain until I thought it
would snap, I finally managed to push SEND again...
The manuscript is off to copy editors
now, so I’ll let you know how it goes from here. But honestly, this process has
been amazing and nothing feels better than being able to work with an editor
who loves and believes in your manuscript as much as you do, and to have a
whole team willing to stand behind you and help push your book to that next
level! :)
