Where things regarding my manuscript currently stand:
The more that I have looked into it, the more it seems that publishing through Amazon - which would make my memoir available as an ebook on Kindle devices/apps as well as printed as softcover or hardcover - is going to be the way to go. I've been keeping a list of all the agents who I've queried with about representation and, well... it's a lot who I haven't heard from. A few have contacted me back to tell me that they're turning me down.
Regrettable, but also understandable. A very good book will still have to struggle to find an agent, going about things the old-fashioned way. And I've always known that this book is going to be a very difficult proposition. But publishing isn't what it used to be twenty or ten or even five years ago. There are ways to get a book out there for readers to discover. I'm going to make the most of that opportunity. On the day it's first available I intend to have the ebook, the softcover, and the hardcover ready to order.
The other week I set a goal: to have my book up for sale by the end of the year. And maybe even by late November, which would mark the first anniversary of the first draft being finished. That would be nice.
I think that one thing I need to be better at is marketing the book. Only now am I discovering what "marketing" means exactly. To that end, and at the suggestion of a friend who has gone on to be a published author, I will be setting up a website devote to my writing. I'm also going to try to put together an e-mail list. And create a Facebook group. So far as X/Twitter goes, I can't arouse new followers on there to save my life! If I could figure out what I'm doing wrong I would absolutely take steps to remedying that
Okay, let's get into the technical status of the manuscript itself...
Right now I am doing something that perhaps I should have been doing all along: running the chapters through the Grammarly writing assistant. I was very reluctant to take this step at first. I don't like involving artificial intelligence into what should be a pure human effort. But a fellow author convinced me that Grammarly's free edition does nothing more but catch grammatical errors, repeated words, misspellings... very basic things. This author told me that the free version of Grammarly is very good at this. But that if I were to use the premium version, which is $30 month to month, there would be the risk of the document coming across as "enhanced" by AI. So I'm choosing to be content with basic Grammarly.
So, that's what I'm doing to my manuscript right now. I'm running it through Grammarly... one chapter at a time. And there are a lot of chapters to process. But it's making a difference. And I'm catching a bunch of places that could use improvement. It might be another week before they're all finished in this part of production. And then I'll go over the manuscript with a fine eye and whatever else. And then... then... maybe, finally putting this together for publication. It's going to be a positivalutely MASSIVE Word document. The biggest I've ever worked with. Going to have to learn how it's formatted for publishing.
A lot more still to tend to. But over the course of this past year and a half of dedicated work a lot has been done. This project has come a very long way and I'm letting myself feel accomplished. The finish line is almost in sight. Just a few more things to fall into place and my first book will be out in the wild. A friend remarked a few days ago that it's a sign that you've really arrived when you have written a book. This will indeed be a fine feather in my cap.
Oh, by the way, this book will have its own ISBN number. I'm going all out.
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