So, I finished my latest book Revenant and am going to submit it today. While I did a crazy Snoopy dance last night when I typed The End, it occurred to me that this is hardly the end of this book.
Assuming that the publisher I’m sending it to buys the book (cross fingers and pray really, really hard), then I have to go through edits. Lots of edits where I sculpt and hone and prune the bejesus out of this bad boy until it only vaguely resembles the story I turned it. This is a good thing, because as much as we whine and bemoan the editing process, it usually helps the book in question to become a better piece of marketable product. And this is, after all, a business where writers put out a product for sale. More sale equal more money, and money is gooooood. Bring it on, baby.
After edits are done, you get a release date, a cover, other promotional material. You set up promo chats, bloggings, interviews and basically anything to pimp the crap out of your book to make it sell like hotcakes. And once it’s out on the market for people to buy, you still do a little promoing here and there as people mention it to you for as long as it’s available for sale.
So, basically, once you hit The End, there’s no end in sight. Am I the only weirdo who thinks that’s the coolest thing ever? How do you feel when you type The End?
October 24th, 2006 at 5:11 am
Woo whoo! Congrats on finishing, Crystal
And I agree, it’s never ‘the end’ until your contract is up maybe and it dies a horrible painful death if they don’t renew it. But… yeah I don’t want to think about that.
October 24th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
You know, typing “the end” isn’t as cool to me as pressing “send” or pushing that envelope into the mailbox. For some reason, actually getting that thing out to someone to read and accept or reject is more thrilling.
October 24th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
Yay Crystal! I agree, it doesn’t end. And it IS exciting. A lot of hard work but thrilling just the same.