Completing a book is a monumental achievement in a book journey. You successfully navigated the Draft Marshes, no simple task. Perhaps you’ve even braved the Range of Revision or hiked the Line Edit Foothills. But it’s possible to make that journey and choose not to continue to Publish Bay. Not every book is meant to be or needs to be published. [Read more…] about Try Something New
Book Journey Map
The Querying Sands
After you’ve hiked the Line Edit Foothills, you come to a crossroads: Do you try to entice a traditional publisher to edit, design, produce, and market your book; do you do that work on your own to self-publish; or do you start a new writing project?
If you want a publisher to put out your book, you’re going to trek through the Querying Sands, a hostile-looking path. [Read more…] about The Querying Sands
Proofreading Boulders
After your trek through the woods of design and copyediting, pause and catch your breath. Now is the time to proofread your work before you launch your voyage into the sea of publishing. Proofreading is a final check to make sure your gear (your words, design, etc.) is in order before publishing. [Read more…] about Proofreading Boulders
Reunite the Party: Typesetting & Ebook Formatting
It’s time to get the gang back together! Earlier in your book journey, you split the party to tackle initial design work and copyediting at the same time. Now you need to bring your polished text and your design tools together to create print-ready files and distribution-ready ebooks. This is where the Design Pines and the Red-Ink Woods meet. [Read more…] about Reunite the Party: Typesetting & Ebook Formatting
The Red-Ink Woods
The Red-Ink Woods of copyediting are the last place your book goes as a manuscript in your book journey. After copyediting, it gets reskinned for page proofs/galleys, then on to publishing! [Read more…] about The Red-Ink Woods
The Design Pines
The Design Pines are a leg of the self-publishing book journey after line edits. This forest is where you gather materials and build tools to create the visual magic of your story. Unless you’re a skilled visual artist and graphic designer yourself, it’s wise to enlist one or more book designers. (If you’re publishing traditionally after a trip through the Querying Sands, your publisher will hire them.)
Because visual magic is usually less familiar to writers than wordy wonder is, this post is more detailed than the previous Book Journey Map explanations—and there are more free resources for more info at the end. [Read more…] about The Design Pines
Split Your Book Journey Party
If you picked the self-publishing fork in the road after the Line Edit Foothills, it’s time to split your book journey party. You’ve got multiple quest objectives, and you can accomplish some of them at the same time if you plan it right. Right now you need to do two things: polish your manuscript and put together the graphic design pieces that make your book visually delightful. [Read more…] about Split Your Book Journey Party
The Line Edit Foothills
On your book journey, you exit the Range of Revision and ease into the Line Edit Foothills. After conquering the larger mountains of character and plot, now it’s time to cross the rolling hills of cadence and prose. When the sun hits them just right, these hills sing.[1]Emperor’s New Groove reference 100 percent intended. [Read more…] about The Line Edit Foothills
References
| ↑1 | Emperor’s New Groove reference 100 percent intended. |
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