Not all Glitz and Glam #writerlyWedensday #awriterslife #amblogging

When you think of an author do you envision someone wealthy that sits at their computer all day typing away without a care in the world? If you do I am about to burst your bubble.

Sure there are some authors such as Stephen King and Nora Roberts to name a couple that makes a good living and has notoriety. Some are lucky enough to be published by the big houses.

For most of us, however, we are either with a small house that struggles as we do or are self-published. I am going to talk about self-published since I have more experience from that.

Don’t get me wrong some self-published authors make ends meet and can work full time at their craft. It took lots of time and many books to get to that position though.  For many of us its hard to come up with the money to put out a decent book. If we do go about it properly to put out a quality book here are the steps.

courtesy of Pixabay.com

The idea. First, we  have to have an idea of the story we want to write. Figure out the genre, the tropes than a title and characters.

The title. It’s not as easy as just jotting one down and saying this is my babies name. Nope. You have to research that there aren’t a billion books already by it or it will get lost in the deep depths of search engines. We need something unique and easy to find when someone goes looking.  Nowadays we also have to make sure there are no series trademarks on it as well. It’s like naming a baby. You don’t just write down the first thing pops in your head.

So now we have the conception and the baby is named we can sit down and pop out the baby right? Wrong. Now we need to come up with the characters. Their names  Most of us make a character profile and that takes time and some research. By the time we are done, they become best friends. Next, we have to do the same for settings. Name towns, shops, colleges, streets. next is an outline. Even if we are pansters we need a rough idea of where the story starts, crests, the middle and ends. We need to know inciting events, conflicts, how much romance and sex there will be. is it going to be a series or trilogy?  That’s just a few things we have to figure. If its a series that’s a whole new game.  maybe I’ll discuss that later. If we outline we go into more detail maybe even chapter by chapter and that can take quite a while.  Oh and research. lots of it.

Every author is different and has their own style of setting up and how to begin.  Here is mine.

Once I have my title, setting and a soft outline and plot I do the first draft often called a rough draft. after that, we self-edit, do some layering and run it through my editing software. Then I send mine to my Alpha reader. she goes over it and dissects it like a mad scientist then we do this a few times until we think its ready for the next step. That’s a paid editor. I can’t say much about that as I haven’t had much experience with this step yet. then its beta readers to see if there are any loopholes, the pacing is ok, etc.  In the meantime, you have to do the cover design which isn’t cheap. Unless you are great with graphic design.  You need a formatter unless you are techie enough to do that yourself. So the paid parts so far are covers, editors, and formatters. this could run in the upper hundreds or thousands depending on photo’s photographers cover artist and the other two.  But I’m not through yet.

courtesy of Pixabay.com

Now you have to go to market. The book most likely won’t sell itself. So you have to set up blog tours, groups, pages, websites (another expense) Parties, events, buy swag.  I am sure I have missed something.

I bet you are exhausted just reading this.. well I’m fixing to add some more. Whether we work fulltime writing, or have a day job like many ( more tiring) many of us have kids or grandkids, Husbands or wives, some sort of family to deal with. then we have meals to make, houses to clean, bills to pay, some even yards to take care of.  There is fitness to deal with pets to take care of, yes we have normal lives beside the writing.  So why do it? Because we love it. It’s a passion.Our characters or settings are a part of us we want to share. At least this is how I feel and I hope someday soon you will love my men, women children, animals, towns, worlds as much as I do. If you are like me you feel like a juggler.

courtesy of Pixabay.com

Have you been considering becoming a writer? What surprises you most about this?  If you are established was I wrong about any of it or leave out something important?

If you can dream it..You can do it!