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Steps to Writing and Self-Publishing a Novel

Posted by Dawn Ross on July 7, 2020
Posted in: Marketing, Publishing, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

How many steps are there from writing a novel to self-publishing it? I’m sure the answer varies depending on your skill, writing process, and resources. For me, there are fifteen steps from the initial planning of the novel to publishing and marketing it. Some are easy, some are hard, and some cost money.

Step One: Outline the Novel

You can either outline your novel or wing it. Some people (called panters) enjoy the freedom of winging it. It can lead to some interesting surprises. I prefer outlining my novel. I generally already have a good idea of what I want to happen in my story and outlining helps me keep the story on track. You can make your outline as generic or as detailed as you want.

Step Two: Write the Novel

You can either try to perfect your novel in the first draft or write a rough draft and reach the goal of writing an entire novel. I write my entire novel during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which is in November. Since my story is written quickly, it is an extremely rough draft that probably shouldn’t be submitted to anyone for reading.

Step Three: Review/Rewrite the Novel

Whether you tried to perfect your novel in the first draft or wrote an extremely rough draft, you will want to give your novel a read-through and fix any issues you find before you submit it to people for reading.

Step Four: Get Feedback on the Novel

Find beta-readers or other writers who are willing to give you feedback on your novel. This is not always easy. You could end up with people who tend to always give good feedback for fear of hurting your feelings. You could get someone more focused on grammar or punctuation errors (which is okay but not needed yet). Or you could end up with people who give feedback that does not really apply to your style or preferences. If you’re lucky, though, you can get some insightful information that will help make your story better. I am currently in this step for The Dragon Emperor: Book Two of the Dragon Spawn Chronicles.

Step Five: Rewrite Again

The feedback you get in the previous step could point out issues you never thought of. Some of those issues could be small while others could be huge. Either way, it is likely you will need to do some rewriting.

Step Six: Hire a Development/Content Editor

I know this step can be pricy, but I would not recommend skipping it. You don’t know what you don’t know. A development editor can help you learn. Would you rather have a professional point out some serious story problems, or have readers so put off by your errors that they leave you negative reviews? You owe it to yourself and to your readers to have your work looked at by a professional. A development/content editor can help you find plot holes, make sure your writing style is consistent, point out places where the writing could be improved or clarified, and more. Take the time to find a development editor who knows your genre and whose editing methods you admire.

Step Seven: Rewrite Again

The newer you are at writing, the more a development editor is likely to find. But even experienced writers will have things they need to fix. We writers tend to be so close to our story that we forget to put some of the things in our head into the story.

Step Eight: Hire a Copy Editor

A copy editor will look for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. Don’t hire this type of editor until you’re sure your story is as close to perfect as you can make it.

Step Nine: Polish the Novel

Fix the spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors of your story.

Step Ten: Market

There are several ways to market your book. There are too many to be covered in this post, so look for a follow-up post later. If you’re new to writing, you may want to start your marketing by building a social media following before you write. Twitter, for example, is a great place to find both aspiring and successful writers who are happy to support a new writer.

Step Eleven: Get a Book Cover

You can design your own or hire someone to do your book cover. If you design your own, make sure you do not take images from the internet without permission. Create your own images from scratch, look for images that are public domain, or buy images at a reasonable price from sites like 123rf.com or bigstock.com. If you hire someone, do your research and make sure the artist is not backlogged and knows how to format their work for self-publishing. Fiverr.com can be a good place to find someone.

Step Twelve: Format the Novel

You probably wrote your novel in Word, Google Docs, Scrivner, or other places. But just because you used these platforms doesn’t mean your document is ready to be uploaded to a self-publishing platform. You may need to format chapter headings, font types, spacing, indents, paragraphing, and even page numbers. Follow the instructions of the publishing platform carefully and be sure to do a review before you hit that publish button.

Step Thirteen: Self-Publish the Novel

Publish immediately or do a pre-publishing campaign.

Step Fourteen: Announce Your Novel to the World

Use all your social media and marketing platforms to announce your new novel.

Step Fifteen: Continue to Market

This is an ongoing process. Keep up with your social media sites and continue to market.

Conclusion

Does your head hurt from all this information? You thought writing would be easy, right? These steps can be daunting, but take it one at a time and you’ll do great!

Did I forget anything? If so, please feel free to comment below. And feel free to share your experience with any of these steps.

Simple Steps to Writing a Novel

Posted by Dawn Ross on January 28, 2017
Posted in: Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Typewriter for Writing a Story

So you have a story in your head and you suddenly feel inspired to write it. You sit down and you open a Word document. The story flashes through your head. The action, the heartache, the drama. But where do you start? How do you start? Suddenly you’re overwhelmed.

While some writers can simply start writing by the seat of their pants (called pantsers), some of us need a little more structure and guidance. If you are one of the later, here are some tips on where to begin.

Firefly Cast of Characters

Establish the Main Characters

If you’ve been thinking about your story for some time, you may already know who your characters are. You may also know things about them such as what they look like, where they work, their strengths and weaknesses, and so on. Either way, you need to create a character journal with all their information. The more important your character is to the story, the more thorough this journal should be.

Dwarves Bilbo and Gandalf in Rivendell Hobbit Movie

Establish the Setting

This is something else you might already have in mind. Creating a journal about it will help you fine tune it. A journal is also a great way to keep track of details later on as you write your story.

Set Up the Story Structure

If you’re having trouble just sitting and writing, having a story structure can help. The first structure you need to consider is the three acts basic acts that most good stories should have. The acts also help you determine your overall plot.

The first act establishes your setting and characters, and then brings about the inciting incident. The inciting incident is the event that rocks your character’s boat, the even that calls for his or her intervention. This incident can be something as simple as a death of a family member to something as cataclysmic as an explosion wiping out half a city. The second act consists of your character trying to resolve the situation only to find it’s not easy. Two steps forward, one step back. The third act contains the climax and the final wrap-up.

I have only given the basics of the three acts. If you’re having trouble with this, there are a ton of books and free online resources that can help.

Notecards for Writing a Story 001

Map Out the Outline

An outline is not the same thing as the story structure described above. The outline consists of the story structure, but it is much more detailed. It doesn’t just help you with your timeline, it also helps you establish important scenes, show you where gaps are, and gives you something to refer to as you write.

I have written an article previously on how using index cards helps me establish an outline – Outlining Your Novel with Index Cards. Make it fun with colored index cards!

Decide the Point of View

This can be a tricky one. Before you write, you really need to know how you plan on telling the story (or showing it, I should say). Here’s an article titled, Point of View Writing. It gives the basics and in an easy-to-understand way. The article states that Third Person, Limited is the most common point of view in fiction. I agree. And it is the point of view I use. I find it the easiest to use and the easiest for readers to fall into. But whichever you use, be sure you are consistent.

Decide the Tense

There are only two choices in writing tense: past tense or present tense. One would think that writing in present tense would be best because it establishes the immediacy of what’s happening. But past tense can work just as well. For some reason, I tend to do my outlines in present tense, but write my novel in past tense. Whichever you choose is fine, just be sure to be consistent. The Write Practice has another great article regarding writing in past tense versus present tense.

Book Time Clock Ticking

Write

This can still be the hardest part. But a friend and fellow writer posted something on her blog recently – Write Bravely. What does it mean? It means write and don’t worry too much about what others think. Don’t worry if your point of view or tense is off or whether you have enough descriptions in your scenes. Just write. You can worry about all that other stuff later.

If finding the time is a problem, make the time. Give up a television show or two. See if your significant other can help take up a chore or two. Even an hour a day is better than nothing. You’re story is never going to get written if you don’t make the time. Here are 10 Ways to Create More Time in Your Day.

Conclusion

Try not to look at novel as one big huge project. Big projects are easier to complete when you break them down into smaller projects. Use the headings I’ve used in this article as mini-projects. Even the heading Write can be broken down. Just take it one chapter at a time. One chapter at a time and you’ll get there. Good luck!