Warwick Life Strategies

Welcome Back Jacqueline!! As an author, Jacqueline has kindly offered some insight into the world of publishing and the hard work and dedication it takes! If you're passionate about writing and want to share that talent with others (and so you should!) keep reading!!

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Are You in for the Long Haul?

Writing a book: For many aspiring writers, a published novel will forever remain an unattainable goal.

Why?

Because it takes a lot, and I do mean a lot of work just to get that idea onto paper. Some writers use online tools, like Nanowrimo (coming in the month of November) as a way to kick-start a new novel. With a goal of 50,000 words within the month, that's about 3/4 of a finished first draft.

But a first draft is just that...the first attempt at getting it all down on paper.

Now come the countless hours of revising plotlines, adding dimension to your characters and tweaking all the tedious grammar and punctuation errors.

Next, and I recommend this process highly, comes subbing the manuscript for critique. Whether you belong to a critique group (online or where you live) or whether you pay a professional to critique your manuscript, these "new" eyes will find numerous inconsistencies and areas that require at least a second look.

Next, comes the research into finding the right publisher(s) and pitching your book idea with a query letter, synopsis and depending on the individual editor's guidelines, possibly submitting the first three chapters of your polished manuscript.

Then comes the waiting. It can take six months to hear back from a publisher and many submissions never even get a response, which can be very frustrating. (I was lucky enough to be able to secure a pitch with an online writing conference called Museonline and pitch directly to the editor in a chat room and receive an instant request for the full manuscript.)

So what do you do while you're waiting...start writing your next book.

As an author who spent almost three years writing and revising her first suspense novel, the icing on the cake is that finally, last February, I signed a contract with a publisher. My novel was accepted for publication.

First came the content edits, where one of the publisher's editors read my novel and made comments, suggestions and questioned different aspects of what I considered my polished version. So, I made significant revisions, which I must admit, all made my manuscript stronger in the end.

After the content edits, came the line edits, where again, my words and ideas were under the scrutiny of one of the publisher's editors. With just a couple of minor tweaks, my manuscript was nearly ready.

Also during this time, I filled out descriptions of my characters, setting and ideas for cover art. Soon, I was sent a design, which I totally loved. It was exactly what I would have chosen for my book's cover.

Now my manuscript was in the queue to be published. All in all, from my initial pitch in October of 2010 to my novel's debut, it took pretty much a year.

Was it worth the wait? You betcha!

Anything worth having requires a committment from you. Don't shy away from hard work. Be tenacious. It'll pay off every time.

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Jacqueline McMahon's novel, "When Love Won't Die", is currently available in ebook form from Red Rose Publishing. Look for it, coming soon to Amazon.com, Kindle, Mobipocket, and other e-reader formats.

To buy Jacqueline's novel, please follow this link: http://redrosepublishing.com/books/product_info.php?products_id=649