Book Timeline

“How long will it take you to publish that book?” 

“When will your book be done?” 

“Geesh, it takes a long time to write a book.”  

“You’ve read your book HOW many times?” 

“Did you seriously rewrite it multiple times?” 

These are all questions and statements I’ve heard A LOT in the past several months, especially since I decided to go “public” with my work as an author.  

The short answers to these questions: a long time, I don’t know for sure, YES, at least ten times, and yes, I really did.  

Now let’s dive in and really talk about the specifics. Please remember, however, that each author and book and experience of writing is completely different. Even for blog writing, I can sometimes crush out a piece in a day, others take me weeks or more to find the right words. Some I’ve even been writing in my head for a year or more.  

Fool Me Twice will be my first novel. I don’t claim to be an expert in writing and certainly not in publishing processes. I’m VERY new to this whole gig, so I can only speak to what my first and only experience has been.  

How long will this process take?  When will the book be done? I honestly don’t know for sure. So far it’s been just under a year and a half. Everything has taken longer than I originally anticipated, however, which is not a bad thing, just reality. And figuring things out as I go has been a huge part of the learning process for me. I’m soaking it all in and enjoying the things that come up and taking some of the barriers in stride. Originally I thought I’d be done with the whole book within a year. Why I thought that, I’m not sure. Maybe because at some points, I was knocking out more than a thousand words a day in my zero draft (the very first, very rough, very NOT GOOD copy of a book), I thought it would really fly by. But then came the editing process. And that has literally lasted almost a year. The timeline has shifted for me, and I am absolutely okay with it. While my readers are excited to get a copy in their hands, I’m just as excited to pass those copies to them. All in the right time.  

It really does take a long time to write a book. For most authors, the time varies dramatically, some taking 6 months to finish their first draft, others take years to finish. Each author is different, as is each book. When you take into account the editing process – think read-throughs, re-writing, editing in the document, cutting scenes, and more, it takes even longer. The publishing process includes a wide range of steps depending on the route the author takes. Traditional publishing often requires querying for an agent, finding the right publisher, editing, designing, marketing, and more, all through a company or publishing house. (Again, please keep in mind that this is not my expertise, and I am not as familiar with this timeline.) Self-publishing, which is the route I’m taking, has been a true joy for me. I chose to go this path because I wanted to learn as much as I can about all of the details and steps, and it has most certainly been eye opening and good for me to know. I wrote the book, sought out editors, found the one that seemed like the best fit for me, worked with her over the course of several months, then implemented her suggestions as I saw fit. After I worked with my editor, I did a lot more reading, editing, and altering of the book. In the meantime, I worked with a cover designer who was amazing at taking my vision from my words into an actual design. I held a photo shoot to get images for that cover as well as my social media platforms, which I also had to work on getting set up. I have worked directly with a typesetter, who takes my text from boring to book-looking, and I’ve been fortunate to work with a team of attorneys who have helped me put together my copyright and all of the legal things that come with writing a book. I’m also thrilled to share that I have also been working with a team to produce the audiobook, which will likely be released shortly after the print version of the book is out. (Yet again, I just don’t know because I’m so new to this!) So yes, writing and publishing a book takes a LONG time. And like I said in my previous blog, it’s all seems to be invisible work until the book is printed and in my hands.  

You’ve read your book HOW many times?  More than ten, less than 100 times. I think I said, “I’m reading my book for the last time before it’s published” a handful of times, but so far that hasn’t been true. Every time I read it, I find a tiny punctuation error, a spacing issue, a sentence I don’t love, or a word I want to change. Tiny details are important to me, and I want to do this well, to the absolute best of my ability. 99% of books have at least one error in the published copy. Knowing that has both given me comfort and a challenge. I’ve read my book a lot of times. I can’t imagine any author doesn’t, and I love that.  

Finally, I did, I really did rewrite my book multiple times. And we are talking weeks of rewriting time and work, and it was worth it every single time. Each time I chose to retype the book, small details popped out, better word choices struck me, and oftentimes even plot advancements and changes came to me. I’ve heard from authors who put their previous drafts away and completely reconstruct the piece, but I didn’t do it that way. I found that it worked best if I printed the entire book with large margins, made notes in my existing document, and flipped pages as I retyped. Sounds boring, I’m sure. But not for me. I loved it and felt excited with every new page that was completed, every scene that I improved, and each time I could say I was done…with that step.  

Writing my first book has been a work of love and labor, and I am so grateful that I’ve been able to do it.  

Keep an eye out for the next blog in this series to learn a little bit about what a day specifically looks like for me as a writer. But before I close, as always, I’m forever grateful to every reader, supporter, and encourager, and again I thank you sincerely.