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The Next Step

December 4, 2014 By Kerry Gans 5 Comments

Those following this blog know that I got my final edits back from my publisher right before Thanksgiving. Those in my Facebook network know I returned those final edits on Sunday—yay! After rejoicing in getting that finished, I wondered: what next?

The immediate “what next” is getting “blurbs”—asking fellow authors in your genre if they would consent to read your book and, if they are inclined, to give a quote for the book. As a massive introvert and a person who hates to ask for help, this is actually quite hard for me. So I sent some emails asking if people would consider reading my book and am now waiting for the responses while quietly sweating and shaking.

Other things that will be happening are finalizing the title and cover art (I am looking forward to that!), final edits (on their end), formatting, setting up a marketing plan, and producing promo materials. Much of this, thankfully, will be handled by the wonderful team at Evil Jester Press, although obviously I will have a finger in the title and marketing.

So what am I to do for the next few months while all this is going on behind the scenes? Aside from freaking out, I need to think about things such as the dedication and acknowledgements for the book, creating support materials for the book such as book club questions and a teacher’s guide, finalizing my new website, continuing to network within my genre, and honing my social media strategy.

And I need to keep writing on my other projects.

And take care of my preschool daughter.

And sleep. Maybe. We’ll see.

So much to do, so little time!

Oh, and Christmas. I forgot Christmas.

Welcome to the life of a published writer. (I still get giddy when I say that!)

I’ll keep you posted as things progress!

Final Edits While Failing NaNo

November 20, 2014 By Kerry Gans 1 Comment

I said a couple of weeks ago that I was “sort of” doing NaNo. That I would be trying to finish the final 23 chapters of my book (around 23,000 words). Here’s how it’s going.

I got a good deal of writing in two weekends ago. I now have 17 chapters left to write. It felt good to break the 20-chapter barrier, I’ll tell you!

But I don’t know if I will make it by the end of November. Why?

Because in that same blog post, I had said that if I got my edits back from my publisher, it would derail my WIP’s progress.

And I got my final edits back from my publisher last week! YAY!!

While the edits were relatively minor, I still am not finished. I printed out the manuscript Monday morning and am now giving it a final read-through with my trusty red pen. I am reading it aloud, so where I can do this is limited (my daughter’s dance class was not an option). I have completed reading 30 pages of 190.

This is going to take a while.

And that is why I’m not sure I will finish my WIP by the end of November.

However, I am so excited about these final edits, because that moves us closer to the book being “real.” Once the edits are complete, it can be placed on the publishing schedule. We can start working on the cover. We can finalize the title. We can start getting blurbs. We can talk about marketing strategies.

It’s getting real, folks. The crazy ride that is a debut novel is starting.

Strap in and enjoy the ride!

Looking Back on the Journey

October 2, 2014 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

This past Sunday I attended the Writers’ Coffeehouse held at the Willow Grove Barnes & Noble. I always enjoy the meetings, for the information and for the camaraderie. There is undeniably something energizing about being in a room full of people who share the same passion as I do.

But another thing I enjoy is seeing the people in different stages of their journeys. I, of course, learn a lot from people who are farther along in their journeys than me. But I also love meeting people at the beginning of their journey. I remember being there, and not so long ago.

I see their awe at being in a group with authors who have actually published real books. I see their jaws drop as they comprehend the mountain of craft they have yet to climb. I see their eyes glaze at the amount of business information they need to learn. I see the bewildered look that comes with wondering if all this work is really worth it. And then I see the true joy at realizing that they are among kindred spirits and that we all started exactly where they are.

When I see the newcomers, I realize just how far I have come in my journey. No longer the newbie, I am in the middle of the pack—not multi-published, but with a book coming out next year. I still have a great deal to lean about the craft and business of writing, and I am happy that I have the resource of the Liars Club Coffeehouses and classes to continue my education.

There are many benefits to being part of a writing community. I have long appreciated the benefit of learning from those further along the journey. But this week I noted the benefit of looking behind at those just coming in. Because in looking back, I can see how far I have come. This gives me confidence that I can go the rest of the way.

When I started, the place I am in my journey seemed far distant, nearly unreachable, almost unimaginable.

Yet I am here.

Where will I be in another few years?

I’m excited to find out.

The journey continues.

Where are you in your journey?

The Learning Curve

September 18, 2014 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

I spent a very enjoyable few hours talking with a new writer a couple of weeks ago. A recently retired teacher, she wanted to focus her new-found free time on her writing. However, she had very little knowledge about the business side of things, and wanted a primer about the landscape of publishing today.

I always like to chat with other writers, and her questions made it clear to me that I had learned quite a bit about the business side of publishing over the years. It surprises me, how much I have learned, really, because it happened as a slow accretion over time. I didn’t take a course, I just listened to people farther up the mountain than me and read a whole lot of blogs written by people respected in the publishing sphere.

People have said that I am a “resource” and sometimes treat me like I have some special talent or something because I know all of this. I suppose I am a resource, and I enjoy sharing what I know with other writers. But there isn’t anything special about my knowledge. Any writer can accumulate the same knowledge. It’s a matter of paying attention and immersing yourself in the information available.

When I first started learning all of this, I’ll admit to feeling completely overwhelmed. There was so much to learn about the publishing business! And it changes so fast! It’s hard to keep up. But after about 3 years of reading 40 blogs or more a week (I often collate the weekly Top Picks Thursday blog post for Author Chronicles), I found I knew stuff. Certain information had taken root, and I had built upon it over the years.

Learning the business side of authorship is not negotiable in our era. Whether using self-publishing, traditional publishing, or a hybrid model, authors have more responsibility for their careers than at any other time in history. If you want to find success, get smart. Knowledge is power, and it gives you options.

It is a lot of work, especially at first, to gain the knowledge you need. There are many blogs that have weekly compilations of links to business and craft articles—our Top Picks Thursday is just one. Find and follow round-ups you like, and then individual blogs that have solid business information. Read. Read. Read. At first most will fall right out of your head again. But slowly it will stick, and accrete, and grow.

And one day, you, too, will be a “resource.”

More importantly, it will put you in the best possible position to make your career a success.

What blogs do you follow for great business advice?

Laptop Scramble

August 7, 2014 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

I am always surprised at how lost I feel when my computer is out of order. I can write on paper, of course, but I use my computer for so many other things. I have a massive To-Do list, which I have color-coded in Excel. I take many photos, which I edit on my computer. I have a dumbphone, so the only way I can get to email or social media is my computer. For someone who lived most of her childhood before the Internet and computers, I am amazed at how addictively plugged-in I have become.

Whether this plugged-in-ness is good or bad can be debated, but there is no doubt that a computer is a requirement of my job. I need it to do my publisher’s edits. I need it to collaborate with my web guru, currently updating my website/blog. I need it to upload manuscripts for self-publishing projects. I need it to submit short stories to markets, and query letters to agents. And of course I need it for the marketing necessity of building platform.

So when my laptop died last week, I felt cut off from the world.

I went away on vacation Monday, and by Tuesday the laptop was acting up. It would start to boot, then just power off before it even got to the splash screen. Multiple tries finally got it booted. I managed to get all my blog posts finished and posted before I closed down that night. Same scenario happened Wednesday—a few heart-stopping moments before it booted. Thankfully, it booted, since I got an email from my publisher. Thursday we headed home, and it booted right up when we got home. I wisely backed up the few things I had not already backed up, and shut it down.

That was the last time it ever booted up.

Diagnosis came on Friday: Fried motherboard. I am so thankful that I had begun to do weekly backups, so I didn’t lose anything!

But I still needed a new laptop asap.

Saturday I went shopping. I found one a laptop I really liked at Walmart—the same brand as my old one. But Walmart didn’t have the one I liked in stock—only on display. So I went to Best Buy. I found one that was close, but more than I wanted to spend. But after calling 3 other Walmarts which also didn’t have the model I wanted, I bought the Best Buy.

I talked to my parents soon after arriving home, and mentioned my disappointment in not having found the model I wanted. My mother suggested I call the Walmarts around them, and they could pick it up. So I did…and the third one had ONE computer left.

My wonderful parents, tired from the Billy Joel concert Saturday night, picked up my laptop (after a couple of minor snafus, of course) Sunday and made a special trip to bring it to me. So after a nice lunch with them, I spent the rest of the night setting everything up.

So far, so good. I am adjusting to the new keyboard and the new operating system. My biggest peeve so far is that the power cord is about 4 inches shorter than the old one and no longer reaches the most convenient plug for me. But if that is the worst of my problems, I will take it!

My old laptop lasted 7 years. So that means I should be good until 2021. 🙂

How technology-dependent are you? What’s your worst tech horror story, and how did you recover?

Because it All Reflects on Me

June 26, 2014 By Kerry Gans 4 Comments

Publishing is a business and everything I put out reflects on my brand. Everything. Even if it’s something outside my usual commercial writing sphere that few people will ever see.

Most of you know I successfully self-published a genealogy book for my dad’s family. It came out wonderfully, and I was very pleased. I decided to edit the book down to end with my grandparents’ generation (to keep personal information on living individuals private) and release it to the public.

I chose to get the book professionally copy edited, because no author can catch all his or her own mistakes. I did not hire a professional book designer only because I could not afford one. However, I did research the basic design mistakes of self-published authors that make their books look amateur and did my best to avoid them.

My genealogy book is clearly a niche book. I will be shocked if it sells even 100 copies. Because of the small expected sales, and because genealogy books even by the genealogy publishers are not exactly known for their book design, I felt that the business decision of not paying for professional design was a valid one. Had this been a book I anticipated having high sales numbers, I would have thought otherwise. However, knowing the expectations of my audience, I made a calculated decision.

Because, as a business, I have to decide how to spend (or not spend) my limited money.

Time is also money, as the saying goes, and as a business owner, I need to make another decision: How much time am I willing to invest in any given project to make it “good enough.”

After I got my copy-edited genealogy Word manuscript back, I made the changes, went through it one more time, then converted it into a PDF file. I added in all the photo JPGs, checked everything one more time, and then went through the final step of converting that regular PDF into a PDF/X-1a file, which is the required file format for Ingram Spark (and CreateSpace). I had done this exact process for my family’s edition, and it had worked flawlessly.

Then I uploaded the PDF/X file and waited for the e-proofs from Ingram Spark. I got them, and flipped through the proofs quickly to make sure all the margins and layout looked nice. It did, so I Approved the paperback version and ordered a hardback version for myself so I could see the cover prior to Approving it. I got the hardcover (beautiful!!) and happily pressed Approve. My genealogy book was now available to the public.

But.

A few days later, I was at my cousin’s house, and I pulled out the hardback to answer a genealogy question. And I saw something strange in the text. A weird space in a word. Instead of Census, it said C ensus. I flipped a page—d aughters. And another. And another. Odd spaces in random words littered the book.

At home, I pulled up the final PDF/X file. Yup, there were the weird spaces. I pulled up the regular PDF file, the one I had converted from. No weird spaces. I tried the conversion again. The spaces appeared again. To this day I have no idea why they appeared in this conversion, when they did NOT appear in the family edition version. It is a technical mystery that is baffling me. But I had to find some way to fix it, because I could not let the book stay out in public the way it was.

So I went into the PDF/X file and painstakingly found every instance I could of the spacing. I went through the document twice, and used the Text Touch-Up tool to fix it. It took hours over the space of several days. But I finally had a version with no weird spaces. I uploaded the new files—even though I knew it would cost $25 per version to change the interior after I had Approved it.

The second set of e-proofs came in and I vowed to go through the text this time, not just flip through. And I found more space issues. They were more apparent in the e-proof because the font was slightly thinner, enlarging the space between letters. I checked the file I had uploaded. Yup, there they were—not as glaring as the ones I had fixed, but noticeable now that I was attuned to them.

So I fixed the PDF/X again. More (but fewer) hours. Another upload (but this time no fee because I was still in the Approval process).

Third set of e-proofs. I combed through the proof and all was looking good—until page 167. I found a space I missed. And another space on page 304. And another on page 338. But that’s all. Just three spaces.

Did I go in and fix them again?

Yes, I did. (You knew I would, right?) And I also found another space I had missed, and a misspelled name that had escaped both the copyeditor and me. And then I uploaded PDF/X #4.

I am waiting for this set of e-proofs, but I think I have finally gotten to where this result is “good enough.” Nothing can ever be perfect, so there comes a time when you need to let it go. I am at that point (barring some glaring error) with this project. I have spent all the time I want in getting this as close to perfect as I can. No doubt some of you are thinking I have spent far too much time on it, given the small rate of return I expect. But I think my time was worth it. Why?

Because publishing is a business and everything I put out reflects on my brand.

Everything.

So I have to make it good.

What do you think? Am I conscientious or completely obsessive? When do you get to feeling that it’s “good enough”?

Publisher Edits Done: What Next?

June 19, 2014 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

My journey towards publishing took another step this past weekend. I took advantage of being childfree to delve deep and finish the edits my publisher had sent me for my novel OZCILLATION. After working on them for weeks, I could hardly believe when I made the final change and hit Save.

I sent them off to my editor with much jubilation.

So what now? There will be at least one more round of edits. As my editor explained, the first round is for the “lumps”—the bigger picture things that need to be smoothed out. Such as extending the ending, tweaking the voice, adding more depth to the world. The next round will be a “polish” edit, focusing more on the nit-picky details of grammar and word choice and things like that. I suppose, if necessary, we would do a third, but hopefully that won’t be needed.

We are also starting to move into the marketing side of things. Most importantly, do we keep the title or change it? I personally like OZCILLATION for a number of reasons, but if we can come up with a more market-friendly title that resonates with me, I am not opposed to changing it. I am terrible at coming up with titles, so I hope the publishers have more ideas!

I am starting to work behind the scenes for when we need to start the book buzz process. I am getting my website and blog revamped. I want to work on a Teacher’s Guide and Book Club questions. I am trying to network with librarians, teachers, parents, and kids to see how I can fulfill some need for them while getting word out about my book.

There’s so much to do! The journey continues into uncharted territory.

Any published authors out there who can suggest other things I should be thinking about/working on?

My Biggest Takeaway: Philadelphia Writers’ Conference 2014

June 12, 2014 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

This year’s Philadelphia Writers’ Conference suited my introverted, straight-A, personality perfectly—quiet, intimate, and studious. The newly remodeled hotel exuded a sense of freshness and beginnings and possibilities. People spoke of courage and dreams and magic.

Last year, that magic worked on me to spark my creativity—a creativity that had gone dormant since my daughter’s birth 4 years prior. I took that spark home with me, and slowly it grew into a full-blown creative fire.

This year, my biggest takeaway was not of the creative variety, although I learned a whole lot about craft that I can’t wait to start applying. This year, my biggest takeaway was an appreciation of the opportunities that can arise out of simply going to the conference.

I’m an introvert, as stated up top, and I have anxiety disorder, so social situations are pretty much a circle of Dante’s Inferno for me. Yet after going to the conference for 4 years in a row, I have met and gotten to know many people who come each year. While I do not do much formal networking, it is nice to have people to say hello to and have people greet me in the halls.

But two events made me appreciate the opportunities we have to connect at the PWC. One began last year, and one happened this year.

Last year at the conference, I pitched to an agent. We hit it off, and he asked for my manuscript. Just as I was preparing to send that manuscript to him, I got an offer from a small press for a different manuscript. Although thrilled with the offer, I was totally unprepared to negotiate a contract without an agent. I asked this agent if he would represent me, and although he declined, he did agree to take a quick look at the contract. To my everlasting-gratitude, he helped guide me to a contract that was satisfactory for both the publisher and me.

This year, I pitched another publisher another book. She was interested. In a serendipitous connection, one of the workshop leaders was her husband. I had sent in a piece for critique to him, and he liked it so much that he showed it to her. She tracked me down the next day and demanded to know why I hadn’t pitched THAT story to her. I told her I only had three chapters done! She urged me to finish it soon and send it to her.

Will anything ultimately come of this? Who knows? But the fact that she was so excited about my project made my weekend. That story is the first book I have started from scratch since my daughter’s birth, and her interest reassured me that I really had found the creativity I had once been afraid I’d lost forever.

Going to the PWC, and taking advantage of the opportunities presented to me, has already helped forward my career. It has saved me from contractual missteps, and given me renewed confidence in my writing ability. These unexpected events and the appreciation of them are my biggest takeaway this year.

Writing is powerful. Often, though, we weave our spells in solitude. We forget—or we never knew—that the writing community has a potent magic all its own. A magic that seeds, revives, and nurtures dreams. Come add your magic to the collective cauldron.

Because we are the stuff that dreams are made of.

Philadelphia Writers’ Conference 2014 Precap

June 5, 2014 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

I suppose, being a writer, I should call this post a prologue, rather than a precap, but my many years in the video business have conditioned me to say precap and recap! And really, this is more of a precap than a prologue, so it’s all good.

I will be attending the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference (PWC) this year, as I have since 2011. It’s my hometown conference, so I can commute daily instead of paying for a room, and I can secure babysitting for my child. I cannot stress enough how much I enjoy this conference. I always leave with tons of information, a handful of new friends, and a boatload of inspiration!

It is odd to think how different my position this year is compared to last year. I have 4 publishing credentials to my name. My first short story, To Light and Guard, was published just days before the 2013 PWC. Since then, I have added a poem, The Towers Stood, in the World Healing, World Peace 2014 anthology and the short story Dying Breath published just a few weeks ago in Youth Imagination magazine. I have also self-published a genealogy book on my father’s side of the family, The Warren Family of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Their Ancestors.

Added to that, my middle grade novel Ozcillation has been picked up by the independent publisher Evil Jester Press, and will be released in 2015.

So my experience of this year’s PWC will be from a very different perspective than last year.

I do have a book deal, but I still do not have an agent. Since you don’t have to have the book finished when pitching to agents at a conference, I may pitch a second middle grade book I’m working on, since I have the other middle grade coming out next year. I do have a YA novel making the rounds in the agent query world, but I keep hearing that the genre is not selling well, so maybe it’s time to put that one on the back burner for a few months (genres always cycle back around).

I’m excited for this year’s conference, because I am looking forward to seeing old friends and friends I have only ever “met” online. And this conference really does feel like home to me. As a person with anxiety disorder, feeling comfortable at a conference is a big deal. I know I will still be totally exhausted by the end of the three days, but it will be a “good” exhausted.

As I have done for the past 3 years, I will be doing a nightly report on the PWC each day of the conference over on The Author Chronicles. Come over each day and see what’s going on at the oldest writers’ conference with open registration in America! We’ll also have a recap on Tuesday, and I usually do a personal “biggest takeaway” post back here on Thursday.

If you’re going to the PWC, I hope to see you there!

The Origin of DYING BREATH

May 22, 2014 By Kerry Gans 1 Comment

DYING BREATH is a contemporary YA short story. It’s my second short story published–the first, TO LIGHT AND GUARD, was published last year. My goal for last year was to simply place a short story, which I did. My goal this year was to place in a paid market, which I did!

DYING BREATH, like TO LIGHT AND GUARD, grew out of a prompt from Jonathan Maberry‘s Advanced Novel Writing course. He wanted us to practice combining two semi-random things into a story premise on the spot. His two prompts were “organ transplant” and “Afghanistan.”

Well, I floundered in class (I’m not fast with stuff like that; I’m a “percolator”), but the idea took hold and DYING BREATH was born. After 3 intense rounds of edits with my critique partners, I sent it out into the world.

I am so pleased and excited to be in this month’s Youth Imagination online magazine! Please read the other great stories in this issue, and browse around to old issues if you like what you see.

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