Adventures in Self Publishing – Part 3

So, since my last blog on this topic, three things have happened.

One, I’ve gone through my edits. Two, I’m a millimetre closer to casting my book trailer. And the third, well, I’ll get to that.

The editor I chose I worked with twice before.  He edited the first edition of Nate and the New Yorker and a short story of mine that he chose for an anthology. One of my writing issues is passive voice and it was interesting to see how he rewrote my text. It’s so straight forward now. But he also did something else I wasn’t expecting. Most of my dialogue tags were changed to ‘said’.

Long ago I learnt that this is the norm and I stick to this rule, but he changed words like ‘asked’ and ‘replied’. Apparently this is a trend now set by J.K. Rowling. The thinking behind it is that if there is a question mark at the end of the sentence, then why overstate it with ‘asked’ or ‘inquired’? Perhaps I’m a traditionalist. I changed these all back. Other than that, I was more than pleased with his edit.

My second task has been casting the book trailer and I’ve found many time wasters.

I initially targeted the actors I wanted, contacting them directly. Sadly, even the ones that responded stopped communicating when it came to the next step – organising to meet.

So I changed tact. I put out a casting call and have received about seven replies. I’ll be meeting several of these actors in the coming weeks, but I’m still in search of my femme fatale. Plus, I might also rope in a couple of friends who suit the roles. Time will tell.

Last but not least, my own publisher sent me a contract for this book.

This is going to sound odd, considering I was putting effort into self-publishing this work. You see, my last publisher was only interested in books with a gay male protagonist, so long ago I confirmed that they didn’t want this novel.

When they folded, I was courted by my current publisher through one of the editors I previously worked with, so I never went to their site and read their submission guidelines. On top of that I’ve had a busy year with my day job, so my writing life has taken a back seat, which is a nice way of saying I wasn’t on top of things.

Several weeks ago I was on social media and stumbled across a forum talking about my publisher and what type of books they’re interested in. A light came on. They accept characters from all the colours of the rainbow. So I enquired, thinking that Social Media Central was still not a book they’d want as its focus is not sexuality. I was wrong.

I signed the contract on Friday. That’s what I like about NineStar Press, the variety of genres on their list.