There was a time when I thought writing Embracing Calla would be easy. That is not a lie, when I found a rhythm and started to focus on writing fully, it was easy. However, when it came to how to publish my manuscript I was well out of my league.
What I did:
I did everything backwards, but I’m not mad about it. After I did 3 full edits. I ended up hearing about beta readers. I found readers, and they told me what needed to be changed.
That changed the whole manuscript again. In reality, I spent so much money on 3 edits only to have to do all the editing stages again. I figured out that I should have gotten beta readers before the first draft editing started.
Looking back that might have saved a lot of money, but I’m glad I did it the way I did because the first draft was C-R-A-P and I was so glad that only 1 editor had to see it in that state. It allowed the beta readers to focus on the story and help me with that instead of being annoyed that I never used commas and if I did, they were always in the wrong spot.
What I could have done:
There are short cuts of course, and I’ll share a photo of how things could go. This tool was helpful a little too late when I was on my 3rd time revising the line edit when I should have only been on step 4. I still really don’t know what an alpha reader is. I skipped steps 4-10 three times before I even got beta readers.
1 finish your manuscript
2 let it rest
3 self-editing
4 alpha reading
5 revisions
6 peer critique
7 revisions
8 beta/sensitivity reading
9 revisions
10 developmental editing
11 revisions
12 line/copy editing
13 revisions
14 formatting/layout
15 proofreading
16 corrections
17 advanced readers copies (ARC’s)
18 corrections
19 publish
20 Celebrate!
All I’m trying to say is do what works for you. There’s no wrong or right way as long as in the end, it gets done.
