First Impressions

Now that the first excerpt for my manuscript has been posted on this site, it is time to introduce it as a project that will be guided through the publishing process. It is a work of fiction titled Three Degrees of Freedom. It will eventually be made available through major booksellers. I’ve done a lot of legwork trying to get it published already and have gotten a handle on some of the industry basics. My first impressions of the book publishing process is that getting this book to print is a very reasonable goal.

When I finally had a finished manuscript in my hands, I did not know what to do with it. I imagine this is not an uncommon problem. Prior to the creation of this site I had dragged my manuscript around trying to find someone to take enough interest in it to publish it for me. My basic instinct was to search out as many publishers and agents as I could find. I reached out to anyone who was accepting manuscripts and looked like they might have an interest. About 20 percent of my letters of submission were rejected. The rest were ignored. Until that is, I was contacted by a couple of hybrid publishers. They made offers to publish it but required me to cover some of the cost burden. I recoiled at this at first, but have since softened to the idea. I did not accept either offer though. I elected to look at some of the other options. I’ve started looking at the self-publishing process and have discussed the project with another hybrid style publisher. I can definitely see several paths by which Three Degrees of Freedom can make it too a bookstore. And to varying degrees, they are all going to demand my own money and effort. I’m trying to sort through these options and find what is best for this book.

I think Three Degrees of Freedom is a wonderful piece of fiction. I am very proud of it. There are parts of it that I absolutely love and I think it deserves to be on a bookshelf. It is a first novel though. It has some first novel issues. I am certain that I have better efforts in me. Knowing that, there is only so much personal expense and energy I can commit to this first effort. Better, I think, is that I walk it through the process and not be ashamed to cut some corners if I need to. For the experience, I will be all the more prepared when I have a second manuscript in hand.

I will be going into more details about the discussions I’ve had with hybrid publishers and what I’ve learned about self-publishing in future postings and articles.