Forgive the obscure movie reference, but lately I’ve been getting more questions of "How's the book going?"
Great!
My debut novel is out December 8th. There are a lot more steps to book publishing than meets the eye. Before I pursued a traditional publishing route, I kind of assumed you printed your book and sent it a la Jo March to an editor with bated breath until they sent a check and a copy of your book in return. Yep, not really how it happens. I’m happy to have my book out with Alcove Press, distributed by Penguin Random House and I can’t wait to see it on shelves soon.
Here’s a general timeline of how I got from writing to publishing The Butterfly Effect:
September 2016: Started writing TBE
December 2016: Finished first draft of TBE
January 2016 - December 2018: Revised—- and revised and revised. I majorly rewrote portions of this book.
December 2018- March 2019: Queried TBE (this meant sending a letter, along with selected pages from the novel to agents. Agents represent your book to publishing houses, and it can be hard to get your foot in the door— or rather, your pages in the inbox— without one).
March 2019: Signed with my incredible agent, Veronica Park at Fuse
June 2019: Went on sub with TBE
October 2019: Exciting phone call with my editor at Alcove! We clicked right away. Still had some other editors to check in with, but I had a feeling we’d found ‘the one.’
January 2020: Signed papers, changed the title, and celebrated
April 2020: Got my first round edits (the major things)— right as the pandemic hit and our lives went into upheaval.
June 2020: Cover! Starting to think about blurbs! Redoing my website!
July 2020: Edits finalized, advanced copies released for reviewers, and publicity gearing up.
Still to come: Final proof edits and introducing it to readers and a whole lot of other things I’m excited and terrified about.
This timeline is considered pretty quick in the publishing world. When fellow author friends talk about “giving birth to a book baby”, they’re usually “pregnant” with that “baby” for a year+.
So, if you’re interested in finding out the fruit of this past few years’ work, think about adding it on Goodreads, or pre-ordering from your local bookstore (or other favorite distributer. Here’s a link to possible retailers.