There is this time in the life of a debut author where the book is done. Copy edits finished, page proofs done, there’s finally nothing left to do. At that point, I had about four or five months left until publication. So what did I do?

I mean obviously I obsessively checked my Amazon rank and goodreads reviews, spent a lot of time on Twitter, panicked that people were going to actually read mybook, and fretted about not knowing what to do with marketing. You know…normal author things. But wait, there’s more. Sort of. I’d like to hope there’s more. I thought I’d try to capture some of the process.

Finish the next book. This is obviously the big one. In my case, it was contractually obligated. PLANETSIDE is part of a two book deal, and Harper Voyager already paid me half of the money for book two and gave me a due date. So prior to mid-April, there was nothing but the next book. That book releases in summer of 2019, so that gives you some idea of where the timeline starts. But for the purposes of this post, that’s where things really begin for the final run up to publication of book one.

Start the book after that. I’m now working on book three. Sort of. My contract (and most contracts) contain an option clause. This allows my current publisher to have first look at my next work after the books under contract. It’s not a bad deal, really. I’ve got a great publisher, and I’d love to do more books with them if it works out. The option is a way for us to both look at the situation and see if we’re a fit. In my case, I’m writing an outline and the first three chapters of two new books. They are both outside of the world of PLANETSIDE, because at this point it’s too early to tell if there will be a ‘PLANETSIDE 3’ in the future. I’m really excited about both of these projects, so it’s not really work at this point, which is nice. For reference purposes, the *earliest* a reader will see either of these books is late in 2020. 2021 is probably more likely, assuming a publisher (either the current or another) wants one of them.

Work on publicity. I want to spend some time talking about this, as it’s a constant subject of discussion among newer authors. I’m going to talk about my experience, but from talking to others, this varies widely. For me, publicity has broken into two categories: Things that I do, and things that my publicist does.

I was super fortunate to have a great publicist assigned from Harper Voyager, and honestly he’s done most of the important work. He’s kept me in the loop by emailing me every couple of weeks to tell me what’s happening, which is awesome, and he approaches the places that I can’t reach on my own–bigger reviewers, trade publications, etc. I provided him with two pieces–my thoughts on different aspects of my book–and he is working to get those placed. It was a collaborative effort. He told me what he thought he could pitch well, and I sat down and tried to write things that fit. He also sent off ARCs to major reviewers, and tried to drum up interest. I think that’s an underrated part of the process. It’s really easy to focus on what reviews say (and we all do that.) But so much of it is getting the review at all. A lot of my good news emails from my publicist have been about who has agreed to review, and who has shown interest. While I won’t share all the details of that right now, suffice it to say that I’m really happy with who has responded, and look forward to sharing those reviews when they come out (mostly in July.)

My part direct participation in publicity really didn’t kick off in earnest until the start of June. Some of this was due to me being a teacher and getting out of school, but a lot of it is because there’s only so much one can do. As a mid-list debut author, I’m not going to get thousands of pre-orders, so spending a bunch of money/time on that seemed to be a lot of capitol for a little result. I made an Author Facebook Page (which I should have done earlier) and I met with my local independent bookstore to see what we could do together (I’m doing a signing at E Shaver in Savannah on August 11th, and you can pre-order signed copies of PLANETSIDE through their website.) I also reached out to some other writers to see about doing guest posts on their blogs to support my release. So far I’m scheduled to appear on Mary Robinette Kowal’s blog on August 16th, and Jennifer Brozek’s blog on a date that is TBD. There will be more to come, hopefully.

But wait…there was more to do on PLANETSIDE. There’s going to be an audio book. I really got excited when I found out, as it’s always been part of the dream for me. I’m a big fan of audio books. I almost always have one going for when I’m working out or doing work in the yard. It was also exciting because it wasn’t a given that there would be one. The publisher retained the rights, but they weren’t obligated to exercise them (a clause in the contract reverted the rights to us if they didn’t exercise them within 12 weeks of the paperback publication.) My role in creating the audio book is pretty small. My editor emailed me three potential narrators and provided samples of their work, and asked me to put them in order of preference. This turned into probably my biggest geek-out moment yet as a writer. I emailed my editor back in less than a minute to answer, without even listening to the samples. Without knowing, one of the three narrators he sent me was the guy I’ve always hoped would narrate this book one day. I wanted RC Bray. He is my absolute favorite narrator. He read The Martian, which was one of my favorite audio books ever (and one of the first I listened to) and since then I’ve gone out of my way to listen to books that he narrated…literally bought them because of his involvement with them.

Have moments of panic. Sure, I think most of us would rather not have this step, but it would be disingenuous not to include it. Ever so often, I stop and think about people reading my book and reacting to it. My book is out in the world. Somebody is going to love it. Somebody is going to hate it. Yes, this was always the plan, was what I worked for, getting my book in front of readers. But it’s still a lot.

The last step. Acceptance. For me, probably the most important part of the process is realizing how little of it I control. Reviews come when they come. Readers are going to like it or they’re not. I wrote a book. I’ve done everything I can. Sure, there’s more to do. I can pre-write guest posts. I can work to find more ways to get the word out. But the book is done. Whatever happens from here, I’ve done my part. And yet, there are six weeks left until release. More waiting. Almost every day there’s the urge to *do something.* I wisely scheduled a couple of vacations the first two weeks of June. That helped. I’m reading a ton of great books. That helps too. And now, I’m getting back to working on my potential book threes. Because they aren’t going to write themselves.