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If you thought writing books was a solitary
business, you'd be mistaken. It takes an army,
it seems. I've said it before, and I'll say it a
thousand times again: without Chief Lowly, I
wouldn't have come close to this point.
One stress––book covers. We went through several
renditions (you may have noticed my short
stories changed a couple of times), and then the
graphic designers altered Buck's cover. I'm not
even counting all the back-and-forth for
Raynor's cover. Then the graphics team sends us
social media content that we have to modify,
approve, and sometimes request entirely new
versions of.
Another stressor is simply remembering to do
everything. One of my mentors, Lynn Raye Harris,
has given several presentations on the
publishing business, and organization was a
crucial lesson. Spreadsheets, world-building,
and checklists are essential.
For example, Chief Lowly uploaded a book to
Amazon that we thought was ready, only to
realize we'd forgotten someone in the
Acknowledgments. And then we realized we left
out important information at the back of the
book. And before that, I didn't have a ready
book blurb, and I wanted to change my picture.
And don't even get me started on finding the
right "keywords" and "tropes" that Amazon
requires to promote your book. That checklist is
SO important.
So, yesterday, after spending ALL DAY working on
a promotional graphic on Canva to upload to the
Rocket City Lit Con site to advertise Alys
Locke, Chief Lowly and I started getting a
little testy about color choices, word
placement, and font color. We were both
exhausted. Finally, he said, "Just put it up."
So I did. I pushed that dang button. You know as
well as I do that once it's on the internet—IT'S
ON THE INTERNET.
The SECOND it went live, I saw that one VERY
important link was not hot. WWHHAATTT? How can
that be??
Here was the conversation:
"Why isn't it hot?"
"You must not have done something right."
"I did it right. The other links are hot."
"Well, that link must have needed something
different."
"It didn't need anything different."
"Where'd you get it?"
"FROM THE EMAIL YOU SENT ME."
"Then you must have done something before you
put it on the page."
"I didn't."
"Well, something happened."
"THE THING IS LIVE! THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED."
**Feet running back to his desk**
"Well, that's what I sent." Yelling from the
other room.
"I KNOW. BUT IT'S WRONG." Me
yelling back.
"Can't be."
We both look closer.
"^$(@^…it's spelled wrong."
"Type it right."
"What do you think I'm doing?"
**Long quiet pause**
I typed it right. It went live-- then no one
looked at it because only ONE person has liked
that post!! 🙄 🤣
I am CERTAIN you have NEVER had that kind of
conversation with YOUR significant other, have
you?!!! 😁
Did you know he and I have worked together for
more than 42 years now? Yup. I couldn't do it
without him!
That's him behind his bank of monitors- probably
trying to figure out why that stupid link wasn't
hot!❤️
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