The Timeline of Publishing

"To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author." ~Charles Caleb Colton

So I'm supposed to write a catchy blurb for One Night in Memphis and send it back to my editor at Samhain. Soon.

Thing is, I haven't even looked at the story in about 6 months. I mean, I remember it, of course. But it sure isn't fresh in my mind. That space is all filled up with Summer's Song, my latest WIP. It's like, you finish writing a book, all shiny and new, send it off to an editor and hope for a contract...but by the time you hear back, and then have to write blurbs and do edits and think about promoting the thing, it's been ages since you've been entrenched in the writing of it.

And the time gap between electronic and print publishing? Another hurdle to deal with. You do all this cool promotion when your ebook releases, try to push up the sales and your name so more and more people become familiar with it...and then you have anywhere from 6-10 months until it comes out in print. Then the new release date looms, and you have to figure out whole other strategies to get people to buy it in print and get excited about it all over again.

Now, I'm not complaining. Becoming a published author has been one of the coolest things that's happened to me in recent years. It's just that the whole learning curve about what happens on the other side of signing the contract, is huge.

So I have to shift gears, pull up ONIM again, and figure out how to make it sound so fun and intriguing and appealing - in the space of about 200 words - that readers will want to buy it. Hmm.

I also have to fill out the cover art form, telling what I'd like on the book jacket. This, though, I'm thinking (hoping?) will be easier, 'cause I know cover artists usually try to make jackets by the same author resemble one another, so you can tell it's the same person writing. Plus I like the idea of the cover from One Night in Boston, the clock face superimposed on the city scene, so I'm hoping for a variation of that. We'll see how it works out!