End of March 2017 - October 2018

Deadlines. They’re a double-edged blade, yeah? They’re good motivation to get hauling but they can also put you in panic mode. Soo…today’s topic is all about Deadlines and Milestones!

I’ll be quite honest: I currently have an August 30^th deadline looming ahead. (I know, I know I should be working in edits/revisions! But sometimes the brain just needs a quick break from the story.) I’ve known about this deadline since March, when it was sent over with my contract. And yet, somehow I still find myself glancing at the calendar and going: “Oh crap! It’s already August?!”

What I Wish I Knew: Plan out your writing schedule ahead of time. Take notes of important dates. Highlight them. Write them in a glittery pen. Slap a sticker on the date. Do whatever it takes to make you not forget about them!

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I guess I should explain a bit more about what I mean by “deadlines sent over with the contract.” They’re essentially a list of important milestones to be checked off by a certain date—this ranges from “implementation of first round edits” to “proofreading” to “completion of cover art worksheet.” Are these dates set in stone? Well, I wouldn’t say necessarily, but it is so very important for both publisher (yes! The publisher has their own deadlines to meet as well!) and author to adhere to the timeline to the best of each’s ability. It’s a simple matter of both partners being able to trust and rely on each other to get The Job done. (The Job = getting the book in front of readers)

To give you a brief snapshot of what a timeline might look like, here’s what mine looks like. I’ve marked my deadlines with (m) and the publisher’s deadlines with (p).

April 12, 2017: Author provided with request of developmental edits (p)

June 5, 2017: Implementation of first round edits (m)

June 15, 2017: completion of cover art worksheet (m)

June 30, 2017: Author provided with any further developmental edit requests (p)

August 30, 2017: Implementation of second round edits (m)

October 30, 2017: Publisher arrange for copyediting (p)

October 31, 2017: Finalization of book cover (p)

November 30, 2017: (Yay! My birthday!) Implementation of copy editing (m)

January 31, 2018: Publisher arranges for proofreading (p)

February 28, 2018: Implementation of proofreading edits (m)

March 10, 2018: Completion of interior manuscript design (p)

March 27, 2018: Cover reveal (m + p)

July 27, 2018: Author provides 2-3 sentence teasers to publisher (m)

October 16, 2018: Release date (m + p)

And that’s not even all of the milestones! I only listed the more relevant ones. Does the list seem a little daunting at first glance? For sure, but truth be told, having such a clear-cut timeline helps streamline the entire process.

What I Wish I Knew: Don’t procrastinate when you can start working on something ahead of time!

This might not be a huge problem if you’re a fairly fast writer, but when it comes to edits, I’m slower than a sloth slogging through mud after a Thanksgiving-dinner-worthy-food-coma. I made the mistake of putting off first round edits for almost a month after receiving feedback from my editor, figuring “editing shouldn’t take too much time compared to writing.”

Ha. Ha. Ha.

I soon realized the edits were more extensive than I bargained for (though I openly admit this is partially my fault since I decided to add some new chapters and enhance plot threads.)

Of Silver and Stars First Round Edit Stats

Original novel length: 80k

How much I cut from the original manuscript: 10k

Amount of new writing I added: 35k (!!!)

Final word count post first round revisions: 105k

I soon realized the edits were more extensive than I bargained for (though I openly admit this is partially my fault since I decided to add some new chapters and enhance plot threads.)

I’m currently in the midst of my second round edits, and this time around, I’m more prepared. I’ve designated a target number of chapters I need to complete by the end of each week in order to meet the deadline with a couple days to spare.

What I Wish I Knew: Plan out your time accordingly!

That being said, life gets busy. Sometimes goals aren’t met. That’s okay. Don’t stress, just do your best to catch up. And if you find yourself ahead of schedule, go ahead and start tackling next week’s goals! There’s no harm in getting a head start! Of course, balance is key, and making sure you take breaks as needed is equally as important. Health/taking care of yourself goes hand-in-hand with being productive.

What I Wish I Knew: Plan. Plan. Plan. It’ll take so much stress off your mind. But if things go astray from the original plan, that’s 100% okay too! Important thing is to not get derailed and to get back on track ASAP.

Well, I have my 30-chapters-left-to-edit queued up on my word doc right now, so I’m off to tackle them!

In case you missed Part 3 of Welcome to the Publishing Jungle, here it is: Research, Contracts, and Lawyers Oh My! 

And be sure to keep an eye out for Part 5: Connecting with the Community 

PS: Questions and comments? I would love to hear your thoughts below!

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March 2017

Time to send out queries. (In case you missed it, here’s the Evolution of the Query.) My hands are shaking as I scan through the list of agents and publishers that invited me to submit my MS to them. And here, my friends, is where I made my not-first mistake: querying both publishers and agents at the same time.

What I Wish I Knew: Do NOT query both publishers and agent simultaneously. Decide, beforehand, whether you want an agent to represent your work, or if you plan on submitting to publishers directly.

Here’s the deal: the big 5 publishers (maybe it’s 4 now? Since Penguin merged with Random House . . .) only allow agents to submit novels, but many independent/small press publishers don’t require an agent. I didn’t plan—didn’t think through what I wanted to do—so I sent queries to everyone who responded to my pitches.

And thus, my problems began. I’ve heard rumors floating around on the web that publishers will respond to queries quicker than agents. I don’t know if it’s actually true or not, but for me personally, I was definitely hearing back from publishers faster than agents—as quickly as within a couple hours of me shooting off my query. (Also, this has probably been rehashed countless times already, but please for the sake of all things good and puppies, please address your query using the name of the agent/editor/whoever you’re submitting to. And if you can’t find a name . . . well, I guess there’s always this story*).

But for the most part, turnaround time was a couple weeks, which I dubbed The Waiting Period in which I fretted and stalked Twitter and distracted myself by beginning a new WIP.

Since I was generally hearing back from publishers before agents (2-3 weeks was the average response time for me), there was an awkward time gap where I didn’t know how to respond to offers because I didn’t know all of the options available. I scrambled and panicked and sent a bunch of follow up emails to those who I haven’t heard back from yet. (And prayed that I didn’t annoy them afterwards.)

To make things more complicated, because I decided to participate in three different pitch events spread over a month, there was a lot of overlap in response times = ONE HUGE MESS. I would be sending out partials/MS requests for my first wave of queries as I was only just beginning to send out the query itself for my third batch.

Also, although this is super obvious in hindsight, I really should’ve only queries agents/publishers who I would want to work with. Just because you got the “like” doesn’t mean you have to submit.

What I Wish I Knew: Only query agents/publishers who you genuinely want to work with.

Then one day, I finally got The Call. Three things the project manager said to me:

1. We would like to make an offer

2. But do not withdraw your submission from others yet. Not until that contract offer is sitting in your inbox

3.  Love the story, but there are some changes/edits that would have to be made. Are you open to them?**

Well, I said yes! And now, I had to rush off to deal with Mess II. Since I queried Blaze in my first “wave”, there were, quite literally, queries I had submitted less than three days ago—and I was already sending out follow ups.

Maybe I’m being silly? Who knows. But I felt really bad and just plain awkward doing that. Like, “Hey, remember me from three days ago? I know on your website you said to allow 6-8 weeks for a response but I NEED TO HEAR BACK FROM YOU SOONER!!!!!”

So I sent a quick email that went something like this:

Dear ___,

I just wanted to let you know that Silver and Ice currently has an offer from ____, and I would very much appreciate it if you could inform me of your decision regarding my submission within the next 1-2 weeks.

Well. That certainly started getting responses faster. Both rejections and requests. (I’ve included my rejection vs partial vs full request stats below.)

What I Wish I Knew: It’s common courtesy to allow agents/publishers a 2 week heads up that you have a pending offer. Use it. Don’t rush. See what all your options are, then pick the one that fits you and your MS best.

Throughout that same week, I also spent time doing research (Part Three: Research, Contracts, and Lawyers, Oh My!) and ultimately chose Blaze Pub 7 days later.

Be sure not to miss Part One: Ready to Query of the Welcome to the (Publishing) Jungle series if you haven't read it already!

Submission Stats

1x 50 pg partial request that ended in rejection

3x full MS request that I ended up withdrawing from submission early

2x rejection upon initial query

1x full MS request w/ offer

3x N/A because I ended up withdrawing my submission right away

*Alright. So sort of a funny/random story with a happy ending. I’ve done enough googling to know that one should always use name instead of “agent” or “editor” when sending a query. However, I, could not, for the life of me, find any names to address my query to for a particular publisher. The publisher website had a submission guideline, the site itself looked legit, the books it published all appeared professional—in other words, I was 99.999% sure this wasn’t a scam. So I ended up hunting down the publisher owner’s name and used it in my query. Less then 3 hours later, I got a response from the owner:

“Dear Tina,

My submission team forwarded this email to my account. Please send over your complete MS.”

So I did. Who knows—sometimes (good) weird stuff happens.

**Oh boy. That should’ve been my first warning. But it all worked out in the end—for the better :P

PS: Questions and comments? I would love to hear your thoughts below!

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