Tuesday Tips: Patience

When you are a new author and have decided to go the Indie Published path, one of the most important things you need to cultivate is Patience.

Bam! Your first draft is finished! Indie authors usually upload it to Createspace and it looks awesome. The second draft makes it better. The third draft better still. They order a proof and it is so exciting when that first proof is in hand.

Try to cool your jets.

Don't rush to publication. (I did it and had to release a second edition a month later after reviews talked about typos.) 

By now you should have lined up beta readers, a professional editor and hopefully a writers group that will help you.

Here is what I like to do now as my process:

• Do as many drafts as it takes to make it as good as you can. Leave it for a month. Don't touch it. Get some distance. Then do a last line by line review.
• Get a beta reader you trust to review it for plot. Not a spelling, grammar and punctuation review. Make mods if required.
• Have it professionally edited. Pay for a good editor. It's worth it.
• Print five or six Red Pen Proofs.
• Give these to your HONEST Beta Readers. NOT your Mom.  Collect feedback, not praise. Make Mods if required.
• One last pass through your editor. 
• One last Proof for format review.
• Do not publish without first seeing a Perfect Proof.
• Press Publish.

It is important that your contract with your professional editor details the process. Your editor gets last review. Turn Track Changes on to show the mods you make.

There is a similar review process for the Kindle edition. KDP make review and updates easy.

--You will want to rush. Resist. Get help. Remember that first drafts always suck.