Novel Update, in 1 chart

I've been a little negligent in posting, so I thought I'd give you a simple update on what's been happening on my end of things for A Spy, Forged.

First off, here's a simple chart that tells you exactly where I am in each category, followed by a play by play.

BOOK PRODUCTION & MARKETING

Cover

I posted a sneak peak of my current cover design here. Yes, it's an AI version, but it's a decent placeholder until I can find a good artist I can afford on deviantart to replace the art.

Formatting

I've already laid out a super-realistic dummy copy on Vellum and have been tweaking its formatting incrementally to make sure it's exactly what I want. I went the extra step to order a dummy copy to see what a final printed book would look like. Possibly one of the best protips I've ever found to stay inspired as you slowly alchemize pixels into pennies.

Marketing Plan / Distribution Plan

I could write extensively about this one topic, but for now, the marketing plan is paid ads on Facebook, and distribution on Amazon and through this website. Since I'm just starting out, I could print my open paperbacks and mail them myself until I can have enough books to convert to a third party logistics company (3PL), but the costs and psychic drain involved to manage fulfillment are worth trading most of my profit—I'm just too busy to do it on my own. I might try finding a cheap author fulfillment service as a bridge to the 3PL, though.

Launch Plan

This one is way trickier. An optimal launch plan would have a lot of moving parts but I'm a one-man band, so at this point, the launch is going to simply be 1) Upload to Amazon KDP; 2) Sell via my website. I'll promote it some, but I'm in this for the long game.

STORY CREATION

Concept / Tropes

I spent about a year and a half hammering out tropes and ideas until I finally landed on the general style and scope of a storyline I wanted to write, which I think other readers might enjoy. If you want to go down that rabbit hole, go check out TV Tropes. Warning: it's a time sponge but such great research material.

Series Plan

This first novel is a standalone. You won't need to read other novels in the series, as each novel will be entirely different, with new characters. That said, there will be a few recurring characters so if you read the entire series, the payoff at the very end should be extremely gratifying.

Plot Structure

The entire plot is 98% finished.

Scenes

I'm currently in the middle of auditing each scene... it takes me about 20–30 minutes per scene and I have 37 scenes. I have my personalized checklist of 30ish items that I want each scene to do so it requires meticulously rewriting each scene's synopsis so it all makes sense. I can't wait too long between doing each scene or I forget important details.

Characters

I began by drawing up a few of the main characters but this part is always a slog so do the scene audit until I hit another important character to give me an excuse to take a break by sketching out a character. It's create, fix, add, delete, create more, get confused, fix, and create some more. Eventually, I have a decent idea of who this characters is and a whole shit ton of backstory that explains why they do what they do. Of course, I'll never divulge that stuff, but having it is why we love some fascinating characters and hate the boring cardboard cutouts.

Theme

Haven't gotten there yet, but I do have some ideas about this.

Tone

In the broad strokes, I know the tone—realistic hard science set 1000 years into the future, but not grim dark. It's closer to Star Trek without being so Pollyanna.

Dialog

When I do the "Elf First Draft", everyone will probably sound alike. It's when I do the final draft that their unique patois will slip in. And I love doing dialog! Good characters have their own patter, and it should surprise nobody that I have seen the entire series of The West Wing at least three times. As far as I'm concerned, Aaron Sorkin is our century's answer to Shakespeare.

First Draft

I've already cracked my dictation workflow so this part should go quickly.

Rewriting

This might take a while, so I'm budgeting 3 weeks in September for it.

Beta Readers

I need beta readers so I'll be hunting on Reddit for some!

Proofreader

My eldest daughter is a great proofreader so I'm keeping this job in-house. (Don't tell her I'll be running the first draft through AI proofreading tools first to catch the simple stuff—her generation seems to have an existential loathing of all things AI.)

Editor

I'm hoping the editor for my last book is still available. I'll reach out when I'm closer to a well proofed first draft.

Final Draft

The Big Kahuna. Official launch day is October 21. Save the date!