March Roundup

 

How have we finished the first quarter of the year already? It still feels like February. Hell, some days it still feels like 2020.

All things considered, though, it's been a productive period. I had three things written on the white board by my desk for January-March, and I crossed them all off:

Publish Lady, in Waiting ✔

Final draft Coming Apart ✔

Send ARCs and endorsement requests for Coming Apart✔

Coming Apart, by the way, is the new title for My Sister's Child. I changed it because there's a thriller by the same name where a woman kills her sister so she can have her baby, and I know that the genres are totally different, but that wasn't a confusion issue I wanted to risk.

One thing that was on my list for the first quarter as a possibility was researching whether or not to do hard covers of my Tudor Court trilogy. I still haven't decided. I can't tell you the last time I purchased a hard cover book that wasn't for research purposes, and I'm not sure if the sales would be worth the effort involved. On the other hand, I've already purchased the ISBNs, so maybe I'll just wait until I have some extra money to throw to my cover designer to adapt the covers (of course they're just slightly different dimensions so I can't use what I have).

The third item on my list of achievements there was a nerve-wracking one. ARCs (advance reader copies) get send out to early reviewers and authors who might consider reading and endorsing the book. Endorsements go on either the front or back cover, or sometimes on what's called a "praise page" just inside the cover. I sent to a few indie authors whose work I like, and also to a few traditionally published, including a few writers who I know are out of my league. I haven't heard from most of those yet, but hope springs eternal.

My goals for April include sending out more ARCs and requests, formatting Coming Apart's paperback so I can get a final page count so I can in turn reach out to the designer to finish the full wrap cover (page count is necessary so that the cover fits properly, and Amazon and the other printing sites are very specific about their wants). 

I'm also accidentally working on the sequel to Coming Apart, because I was no sooner finished the book than the characters woke me up and told me they weren't done with me yet.