Your first novel is a learning experience
What I've learned so far
After a year or so of researching the pros and cons of self-publishing, I’ve just posted the final edited copy of ‘The Eternity Prize’ on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). It’s ‘in review’ for now, a process that, for ebooks, usually takes about 72 hours. If all goes well, it should be available for sale soonish.
I had posted a free version of The Eternity Prize here on Substack, but as I was getting it ready to publish on Kindle, I found that I’d made so many changes, the free version was outdated.
I’m also not sure about KDP’s rules about sharing the e-book's content for free on other platforms, so I’ve taken it down. The free version was always supposed to be temporary, but if you were in the middle of reading it, just let me know. You’ll be the first to know about free offers on Kindle.
When I decided to self-publish, I knew it would be a real learning experience. I started ‘Future So Bright’ to publish long-form fiction, but now I realize, that was a mistake. If I have an unlimited ability to revise something, I will never stop. I need deadlines and hard copies to avoid spinning my wheels.
More things I’ve learned:
1. If your editor likes your short stories and says she would love to read (and maybe publish) a novel, don’t let that one novel turn into a many-thousand-page six-book series. Don’t take three years to write first drafts of each and every book in that series. Changes happen fast at small publishing houses – if such a great offer is made, get something to your editor ASAP.
2. If you’re writing a series about the (possibly) circular nature of time, don’t dither about when to start it. Just pick the time that feels right.
3. Try to settle on each character’s name early on, even if the series is about an alt-history multiverse. Especially if the story is an alt-history multiverse. Your reader is already dealing with enough confusion.
4. Don’t obsess about how or what you shouldn’t write. I love Steven King and Elmore Leonard’s rules for good writing, but some of their suggestions didn’t work for me. I like to work with the TV on.
5. Read as much as you can in your favorite genre. Talk to other writers & find out what inspires them. Take a few classes. Gotham Writers’ Workshops were a great help to me. Social media has some helpful groups - I got a lot of good advice from Writers Helping Writers.
6. Don’t avoid falling into rabbit holes. Half the fun of writing is discovering weird and interesting stuff. Did you know that an Octopus can edit its own RNA? How do they do that? Could we ever do the same?
The name of my series is ‘The Murmuration Chronicles’, which led to many outdoor walks to see starlings making wonderful, artistic murmurations. This Italian physicist wrote a whole book on the subject.
I like to do research, take tons of notes and draw cute little pictures with gel pens. You don’t have to do this, but it is fun.
7. Do try to make writing fun. This is your chance to be in kindergarten again, playing with finger paints. See what works, be messy.
The first draft will need revisions, of course, but once your story is in reasonable, readable form, send it to beta readers or a developmental editor for early feedback.
In some ways, building a book is like building a house. You want to make changes early in the process to avoid doing it later and tearing down weeks of hard work.
8. Don’t try be your own beta reader! You know what you meant to say, but readers outside your head may not.
9. The editing process usually follows this schedule. I did not do this, which is why I was constantly editing and re-editing.
Write first draft:
Find beta readers and/or developmental editors to get advice on the big picture: story, character, scene, pace and coherence.
Decide what needs to be changed and write the second draft.
Find a Line Editor who will go over your this draft, focusing on style, sentence structure, meaning and flow.
Write your third draft. Find a copy editor who will focus on grammar, punctuation, spelling, and formatting. Some apps can do copy editing and proofreading for you, but if you can find a good person to work with, the final result will be more professional.
10. Family and friends may want to help edit your book, but it’s not likely that they’ll be as critical as they need to be. It’s nice for them to offer, but a professional or a fellow writing student might be the best choice.
11. I’ve worked for years doing graphic art for web pages, so I did the art for my first book cover. I think my best effort is reasonable for an e-book, but I’ll probably hire a professional book cover artist for the paperback, due to concerns about formatting & layout. Fiverr comes well-recommended.
12. When you think your book is ready to take its first steps into the big, bad world, the Facebook group 20BooksTo50K has some great advice about fiction writing, publishing, and advertising. If you want to hang out with writers and talk genres and ISBNs into the wee hours of the morning, their annual gathering in Las Vegas is not to be missed.
13. I wanted to make my book available to people who aren’t online, so I decided to go with the traditional Amazon Kindle + Independently published paperback route, but putting the beta version of my book on Substack helped a lot. Readers made helpful suggestions, like:
a. Don’t have too many chapters. The average length of a sci-fi book is between 90,000 and 120,000 words. The average length of a chapter is 1,000-5,000 words. 60 + chapters can be kind of overwhelming. Since The Eternity Prize has many characters and about five different points of view, I decided to use a three star * * * separator to delineate a change of subject or point of view.
b. Divide a long book into sections or ‘parts’ that contain several chapters. Since Joe, the main character, is a scientist, the Parts in The Eternity Prize are based on the scientific method. (Part 1 is ‘The Question’, Part 2 is ‘The Research’, etc.).
c. Don’t indulge perfectionism. The perfect is the enemy of the good enough.
You’ve probably already heard this parable, but it’s so good it’s worth repeating:
From David Bayles and Ted Orland’s book, Art & Fear:
[A] ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.
Aiming for perfection stifles innovation & creativity. Don’t let your inner editor stifle your paint-splatting wild child.
14. If you’re planning to do a series, don’t try to cram too many ideas into the first book. The Eternity Prize was partially inspired by my trips to Lebanon after the 2006 war. I met a lot of interesting people, but due to the politically fraught atmosphere, I couldn’t write about them in my blog. My main character Joe is based on an Israeli guy who used to sneak over to Lebanon to hang out with friends, drink and gamble. Ada and her aunt Carole are based on private conversations with Lebanese expats who returned to Beirut during a (relative) time of peace. My 2080 Mars is one large refugee camp, with militias, assassinations and constant conflict.
Joe’s experiments are based on mRNA treatments – where they’re at now and where they could lead us. I did most of my research and wrote most of the first draft in 2018, but the COVID disaster was a fire hose of inspiration, for mRNA tech info and a future-Earth dystopia. But trying to juggle all that additional information meant more revisions.
That’s my list so far - I hope it helps!