Well since my last entry in April, a lot has gone on. I went to Vegas and had the time of my life, I have interviewed for several decent positions only to not be offered any of them, the focus group reading is completed with 11 total readers, and my writer and I are in final editing/preparations for self-publishing.

So where do I begin?

Since my prior posts have mainly been about getting a book published, I am going to skip the personal life saga and continue focusing on mine and my writer's escapades.

The focus group stuff was fun and compiling the feedback was even more so. I even let one of the members read the entire manuscript. She loved it, by the way. The majority of the feedback from our demographic area was quite positive. It's too bad neither my writer nor I have any contacts in the publishing business. This whole process seems like it should have been easier and taken less time.

While I was working on the documentation for my publisher's list, my writer stumbled across a very useful source for those writers who wish to self-publish. After spending a week reading all the agreements and guidelines and making sure the place was reputable, we began preparing The Reversing Hour according to their specs, giving up on approaching the publishers directly.

So aside from some permissions and rewrites, where song lyrics have been used, we're nearly finished. Most of the lyrics will more than likely be edited out since it is difficult to get the permissions needed to use them. I will even have the art comp for the cover finished by the time you read this entry.

We still have to write the author bio and do some checking with Word's formatting marks turned on, but the worst seems to be over. And if my writer's work is accepted into the top tier in this program, the book could be available to all by Christmas. If it's not accepted, we'll have to wait until we can afford to hire a professional book proofing service. Either way, this program seems like a great deal to get a book in print. Then it's kind of up to our marketing strategy to take over and be successful enough to catch the eye of a publisher or two.

Meanwhile, my writer is plugging away at the sequel story. I believe, after one complete revision, he is on page 150 or so. I guess that's about halfway. And from the way the process went with The Reversing Hour, the second half seems to move at a much faster pace.

One small note on the personal saga... thank goodness football season is here!