Like the shoes,

soles rubbed raw--

I saw him.

Wrinkled leather and

lanky laces.

Comforting embrace,

guiding my soul.

NY Book Editors is a premiere affiliation of editors with extensive experience from New York’s major publishing houses. We spoke to William Boggess there and managed to put some of the questions we thought you’d all like to know about Editors and Editing. He was kind enough to indulge us awhile:

Q: There are many levels of editing at New York Book Editors. How do they differ and where do you come in?

A: I perform both of our main types of edit, depending on what the client needs. The first is a manuscript critique, which includes a read and notes on how to improve the book in broad ways—character, plot, and major prose trends. The second is a comprehensive edit, which includes both the broader criticism of the manuscript critique and an actual markup of the manuscript, where I edit the sentences line by line.

Q: What does your normal working day look like?

A: I usually work for a few hours in the morning at home, followed by some lunch and a workout. If I have a lighter afternoon workload, I’ll usually do that from home as well, but if it’s time to put the nose to the grindstone, I’ll join the laptop’d masses at one of the many excellent coffee shops in Clinton Hill, Bed-Stuy and Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

Q: What is your favourite and least favourite part of the role?

A: It might sound cliché, but my favorite part really is watching a book get better—giving a sentence a shake to see what falls out and making it read smoother, or trying to nudge a character to feel more believable and compelling. My least favorite part is how slow I am sometimes. There’s nothing worse than sitting down at the computer, ready to edit 50 pages and then spending a half hour on the first one.

Q: You personally edit literary fiction and narrative non fiction. Which do you find easier? Do you have a preference?

A: I wouldn’t say that either is easier necessarily, though fiction allows for a bit more variation in style and tone, so the editing can be a bit more free-form. I love working on nonfiction, but my favorite thing is always a nice, meaty novel to tackle.

Q: You’ve worked with some heavy hitting best sellers. What do you consider to be your greatest achievement?

A: I’ve been lucky to have worked on a ton of awesome books in various capacities, so it’s hard to pick one above the others, but my favorite thing recently has been recommending two novels I worked on in the past couple of years—Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You and Lily King’s Euphoria—to just about everyone I know and waiting for them to come back gushing about how much they love them. I wasn’t the primary editor on either one, so I can’t take too much credit, but I love the fact that I had a hand in two recent books that are so universally beloved.

Q: How did you get into the world of editing?

A: In college, I was deciding that I didn’t want to go into academia, when a friend recommended I intern at Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, which was near my school. I was an editorial intern for a few semesters there, which led to moving up to New York after I graduated, and I got a job as an assistant at the literary agency Barer Literary. That started a career in publishing that has me most recently going freelance and working with New York Book Editors.

Q: Without naming names, do you have any horror stories about submissions?

A: Honestly, most of the horror that has stuck with me from my days as an editor and agent is the lingering feeling that I still somehow have a stack of things to read that I’m late on responding to. There’s nothing worse than watching the submissions pile grow when you have so many other things to do, knowing that there are probably some gems in there that you are dragging your feet on.

Q: Are you a writer and what can we read of yours if so?

A: Not since college, when I had a few stories in a campus literary magazine before I realized I was better at improving others’ prose than writing my own. I’m better with sentences than I am with inspiration, so I’m happy to put those abilities to use in an editorial arena.

Q: Who is your favourite author?

A: It has changed a lot over my life, but in the past half decade or so, it’s settled on Larry McMurtry. I really believe that Lonesome Dove is the great American novel, and his books that aren’t westerns show just incredible sensitivity for the nuances of human relationships. I also love Walker Percy,

Q: Do you have a favourite genre generally

A: No favorite genre in particular, but I do prefer authors who are strong storytellers first and foremost. I can appreciate a stylist, but I would rather a traditional story well told than an author who is looking to wow you with their sentences.

Q: What is your recommendation for a book to read before you die?

A: I would recommend Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone. Everyone has seen the movie with Jennifer Lawrence, which is great, but Woodrell’s prose is just so gorgeous that it pales in comparison to the novel. A beautiful example of how dark, tragic subject matter can be balanced by characters who feel vibrant and alive.

Q: What are you working on right now?

A: I’m working on a biography of a famous scientist, a commercial novel about an advice column, a literary novel that is a coming of age story set in the south, and a sports biography of a major professional basketball player. A full plate!

Q: Do you have any advice for writers?

A: It sounds obvious, but I think the most important thing for writers is to write a book that you would want to read. Working in publishing, we think about the potential readership of books a lot, and although I don’t think you should write specifically to cater to an audience, I do think it’s a good first step to imagine what you would feel like if you were to approach your book as a reader. Would you like it? Would you be able to put it down? Would you recommend it to your friends?

Q: Can you give advice for indie authors who self-edit?

A: Buy a copy of The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. It’s the bible for clean, powerful, modern prose. Read it cover to cover, and then reference back to it often when you have questions. I rarely work on a project where I don’t look up a few things in it.

Q: We get asked all the time about literary agents. Can you give any hints on how to open doors with them?

A: The old chestnut is to look at the acknowledgements of books you love to figure out who the agents are, in order to build a list of agents who represent good stuff. I think that’s a great place to start, but keep in mind that many commercially successful books are represented by agents who have full client lists and thus don’t take on many new authors. Try looking at the agency’s website and figuring out if there might be younger agents at the agency who might be younger and hungrier and eager to add new clients. Obviously they might not have the bona fides of the more established agents, but good agencies hire good people, and I can promise that there are tons of smart young agents out there.

Q: What are you reading right now – literally what is on your bedside table, rather than your desk?

A: I’m about halfway through the second volume of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle. When Karl Ove fever first hit New York, the concept didn’t appeal to me, but I read a piece in the NYT Magazine that sucked me in. Volume 1 was such a killer—astoundingly compelling detail for the first two thirds, and then just an emotional kick in the pants for the last third.

Q: What would you say is New York Book Editor’s biggest success story?

A: I haven’t been editing with them for long enough for any of the authors I’ve worked with to make it through the publishing cycle, but overall I think New York Book Editor’s biggest success is just being a great place for editors and authors to connect. Natasa is always looking for ways to improve experience on both sides of the edit, and is always active in trying to find new and exciting books that need our services.

Q: The Oxford comma. Do you like it, agree with it, and, in fact, use it?

A: I like it, agree with it, and use it (see?). Journalists might feel differently, but I don’t think you’ll find many novelists or publishing types who don’t like it.

Q: You climb out of a time machine into a dystopian future with no books. What do you tell them?

A: Y’all missed out!

Awesome answers, there, thanks to William! Many thanks to William for his time and his answers. So there you go. The answers to (we hope) all of your questions, and some great books to get hold of. You can find New York Book editors on www.nybookeditors.com and they are also on Twitter as @NYBookEditors

Friends, it gives me great pleasure to announce that placing in Prose's write4good challenge gave me the courage to finally put together my better poetry and self publish. I want to thank everyone here who has been receptive and welcoming to me, as well as thank Prose for providing the platform that encouraged this. It can be found at the following link. 

https://www.createspace.com/5902668

John Harrigan is a founder of FoolishPeople and is one of the earliest pioneers of immersive theatre.

We met him in Hitchin to talk about writing, acting and his unusual method of getting feedback from audiences.

Prose asks what the catalyst was for him writing, acting in and producing such great art.

“When I left school I went into computers, but really didn’t enjoy it. I was always into all things artistic, so decided to go back to college to study music. The problem was that I wasn’t very musical. However, part of the course was drama, which was something that I loved. The kind of drama we were doing wasn’t my kind of thing though, it was musical theatre. They had a writing and devising lecturer called Les Tucker, and it was through him that I got to write some of my own stuff; my own plays. People responded to them. I think a gift I have always had, has been that I’m very imaginative, I tend to come up with a lot of ideas. So I started doing my own work and decided to go to drama school.”

“I found drama school restrictive insofar as it was all about the acting; you could only be one thing. You could be an actor OR a writer, and at this stage I wanted to be all things. As is often the case with creative people, I had no money and came from a working class background. I started FoolishPeople when I was still at art school on a scholarship. I couldn’t realistically run with it financially, and so became a social worker in residential settings working for a number of different charities that were engaged with helping people.”

“After 10 or 11 years of that, I no longer felt I was effectively assisting those people as I should, yet I did when I was doing my art. So I went back to it full time. I started with a locally with a project called ‘Singularity’ and on the back of that I relaunched FoolishPeople. I’ve never looked back since. I had been so eager to go back to it after the break, and I could never return to ‘normality’ now. That’s what fuels me.”

Prose asks what his creative process is when he’s writing a piece.

“With each new project I learnt my working practise. Not many people realise this, but a big part of our work is based on text. I’ll spend ages thinking about and writing a script, and then I’ll hand it over to the members of FP. It all starts with the written word. Then there’s a long rehearsal process and then the public get to see it, whether as a film or immersive theatre.”

“Through doing it again and again over twenty five years, we've learnt what works best. I think most creatives get knocked back a few times and sometimes feel like they can’t continue anymore, but I believe that’s part of the process. I’ve made some stupid mistakes. The mistakes probably equal the successes. All of my mistakes are the things that have made me the artist I am today and the end result so much better. Unless people have been doing it long enough, they don’t realise that.”

What was it like to deliver Strange Factories, the horror film that has polarised audiences so hugely?

...

Find out later today, and take advantage of a special EXCLUSIVE offer from Harrigan just for Prosers, by visiting blog.theprose.com. Look for a link in the comments (below) this afternoon.

If you could change the world, where would you start?

This summer we launched #Write4Good, a nationwide challenge which called upon writers to share their insights on global issues. Pupils, parents, and friends of students wrote to create awareness about a vast spectrum of cultural and socio-political contention: abortion, mental illness, immigration, global warming. Each entry was equally educational and entertaining, each its own unique journey into the powerful world of words.

A talented panel of professional judges, including New York Times bestselling author William D. Garner, accepted the challenge to read and rank more than 70 essays to determine the top three. Selections were made based on relevant research, grammar and style, and overall creative edge.

The results?

In first place is Sean Ku Wang (@seankw), with this piece entitled “An End to Huntington’s Disease.” Sean will be awarded $3,000 in scholarship funding for the college or university of his choice.

“Combine the cognitive decline of Alzheimer’s, muscle spasms of ALS, and emotional irregularities of schizophrenia and you have a rough picture of Huntington’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder in which nerve cells in the brain accumulate toxins and die. The result is a progressive loss of control of both the body and mind, manifesting as involuntary writhing movements called chorea and deteriorating mental abilities.”

The first runner up is Samantha Fain (@paintingskies) with her riveting words on mental illnesses entitled “Sticking It to the Stigma: There’s No Shame in Being Sick.” Samantha is the winner of $2,000 in scholarships.

“According to the World Health Organization, “one in four people in the world will be affected by mental or neurological disorders at some point in their lives,” which is around 450 million people total. However, only around 297 million will ever seek help for their disorder (“Mental Disorders Affect One in Four People”). How can one receive help if they’re too scared to ask for it? Due to the stigma surrounding mental illness, the mentally ill are afraid to ask for help because of the judgments that may occur when they seek treatment.”

In addition, Joseph Dov’s (@JosephDov) emotive work “UCARE: What is it? And why should you?” takes 3rd place winner. Joseph will take home $1,000 in scholarship funding.

“UCARE stands for Unaccompanied Central American Refugee Empowerment…

“In 2014, there was a surge of unaccompanied children fleeing to the United States from Central America due to the gang violence and threats of harm. These children go through an agonizing journey over a thousand miles to get here, only to face more difficulties once they present themselves at the border. Many children, some of them with their mothers have been placed in detention centers in Texas, Arizona, and California, sometimes for months on end. Federal courts have already ruled these detention centers illegal, but enforcement is slow, if it comes at all. Most of these children have lost family, friends, their homes, and all sense of belonging on the journey here to the States, but simply crossing the border and applying for asylum is only one of many steps to gaining refuge here.”

Prose. stands for empowering writers on a global scale. We stand for the value of language, particularly the written word, in all contexts of everyday life: from education and business to the furthest reaches of the human imagination. We stand for every person’s equal opportunity to write more and read more.

What do you stand for?

In a world full of books, how do you get noticed? Will your story ever have a chance to shine in the over-saturated world of publishing?

As more people take to publishing books, the Indie community is increasing in volume at record speed. So, how do you compete with all the other authors?

My answer to this question is that you don’t. I would suggest that you not even try to compete.

Think of the Indie publishing world as a team: we are all working together for the greater good of a collective. Very early on in my career I learned that, together, we are more powerful than if we were to go it alone. And who doesn’t want support? What you must remember about this com-munity is that we all need extra support now and then, so make sure you have your proverbial karma dollars in the bank.

I’m not saying everything should be tit for tat, but I have found the more I give the more I receive.

Writing a book is a largely selfish endeavor. It’s all about you, your story. But, marketing that same book doesn’t have to be as divisive or isolating. Create the cleanest manuscript you can produce. Then the next step is to sell the product. For that you are going to need a sizable support network. In my experience, if you step out a bit to help others before you need an extra push, you will have people waiting in the wings- all too happy to assist you when the time comes.

Of course, not all people are as responsive as we would like. You should be prepared for some disappointment but, generally, people won’t forget you. Whether it’s sharing your book on Facebook or Twitter, helping with your blurbs (thank you, Janni Styles, who seems to have the secret to writing perfect blurbs and is worth her weight in gold), or putting together a blog post for your latest work in order to spread the news.

But, even with all of these digital resources at our disposal, word of mouth is still the leader when it comes to sales. Many of us lack the support of our friends or family. So, who better to understand what we are experiencing than other authors?

...

Tune in to The Official Prose. Blog later today for the full article by returning guest writer, Brenda Perlin (@BrooklynAndBo), at blog.theprose.com.

As much as we adore real-time digital reading, we understand that there’s nothing quite like the feeling of a paperback in-hand.

Because of that, we are thrilled to announce that physical copies of our e-books (The Prose Anthologies series and others) will soon be available for purchase. For starters, we invite you all to visit the CreateSpace store (look for the link in the comments) where you can order our newest release, Prose: The Haiku Edition. This hard copy edition is complete with Japanese traditional, literal, and English translations.

On the note of publishing, we are also pleased to inform you of a new bi-annual challenge called “The #ProsePitch.”

Twice a year, starting today, we will call for submissions of a 500-750 synopsis of your work-in-progress or completed novel manuscript. This is yet another way for us to help writers achieve their publishing goals.

The challenge (theprose.com/challenge/2444):

Write a 500-750 word synopsis of your work-in-progress or completed novel manuscript. Prose will select the top entry for publication on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo. The winner will also be provided a fully customized package of editing, design, and marketing services.

If your novel “pitch” wins, you will receive:

- A full proofread and suggested edits of your complete novel.

- A final line edit and formatting.

- Copies of the final version in .PDF, ePub, and .mobi extensions.

- A published e-book under the Prose KDP/Nook/ Kobo accounts.

- A teleconference with Prose’s in-house graphic designer.

- A custom e-book and paperback cover design.

- 15 custom tweets and captions for you to use on social media to promote your novel.

- Banner/cover photos for Facebook and Twitter featuring the title and cover design of your novel.

- An Instagram promo image with custom caption.

NOTE: The author will receive ALL royalties for the life of the novel.

In addition to the above-listed incentives, the winner will also receive free e-book copies of The Prose Anthologies (Volumes I and II) and the Prose Haiku Edition. Second and third place winners will receive a complimentary copy of one Prose e-book of their choice.

Qualifications:

You must be at least 16 years of age and be able to deliver a full-length novel if you win. Previously published manuscripts are ineligible. Winners will be announced on December 1, 2015. All genres are admissible. NaNoWriMo participants welcome.

The challenge will run for two (2) full months. Once the winners are announced, we will consult directly with the first place author to coordinate editing, marketing, and publishing logistics.

If the winning author is unable to deliver a complete manuscript within 30 days of the announcement, he or she agrees to forfeit the publishing services. We will then defer to the second-place winner.

We will notify everyone late next summer once the winning novel is available for e-reading download or direct purchase on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo. Any related news and updates will be featured here and on our blog at: blog.theprose.com, so keep an eye out.

If you have questions or would like additional information, please contact our editorial staff directly at https://theprose.com/p/contact.

We recently reconnected with Rolando Hernandez, creator of a sponsored challenge called “Poetry Matters,” with a few follow-up questions about the project.

For starters, we asked, why is it important to provide (monetary) incentives to challenge participants? Does it effect the quality of entries at all?

RH:

In the great scheme of things, the money changes little in terms of quality. In the context of a challenge such as this, money is best served as bait; The scent that catches your attention in a crowded room. There were 50 entries to the challenge and I have a hard time imagining as many with no cash incentive.

So, yeah, it can up participation but it will never make a bad writer good, let alone a good writer amazing.

Who introduced you to the power words, and poetry in particular? Tell us more about your falling in love with writing.

RH:

Words came early for me. I struggled a lot with expressing what oddities that lived in my head and even to this day I find myself telling people that I’m bad with words. My love of poetry came from the east. Basho was huge for me, as was Du Fu. By the time I was in middle school I was combing what libraries I could for the kind of poetry you could measure your life against.

Writing was always there, too. It was the first deep meditation I learned, using my hands to shape thoughts and feelings into silly looking glyphs that, when strung together, could break your fucking heart. When there is an agreement between the physical and mental, the sense of harmony blooming inside you is nothing short of transcendent. That is what writing does for me.

Why does poetry matter?

RH:

I believe that poetry represents the best of what writing can accomplish between author and reader. At its best, it distills complex ideas and feelings to their most pure form and in the most direct manner achievable. Also, it is fucking awesome.

What was the basis for your choice of criteria (form, content, fire)?

RH:

Form: Crafting a rhythm, a meter, that compliments the work and propels it forward is the mark of an artist. It shows that careful attention has been placed in how the narrative unfolds and, if you get lucky, when it clicks it feels 100% natural.

Content: One can not live on sizzle alone. Please bring the (proverbial) steak.

Fire: If you can balance the first two criteria and still manage to display some kind of emotive quality, then you have arrived. It is easy to get lost in the sauce and focused too much on the mechanics of the work.

Who in the literary canon (classic or contemporary) do you look to, depending on your mood or disposition? Provide a few examples of how reading has pulled you out of a negative space or elevated your consciousness in a profound way. Are there specific books, stories, or poems that you’d recommend, for example, to someone who is feeling anxious or out of place?

RH:

Just the tip of the iceberg: I’m a huge fan of Merwin. Specifically, his “The Second Four Books of Poems.” Mary Oliver is another favorite. Check out “Thirst” and “A Thousand Mornings.” Dante’s “Divine Comedy” has been and continues to be a huge influence. Basho is the fucking shit. See: “Narrow Road to the Interior.” Don DeLillo for “White Noise” and “Names.” Toni Morrison for “Song of Solomon.” Leo Tolstoy for his “Family Happiness” and “Anna Karenina.” Albert Camus. “The Plague” shits all over his more famous “The Stranger.”

All of these works have helped me crystallize ideas that I hold dear regarding friendships, social justice, love, identity, modernity, and what kind of life I want to make for myself.

Books help keep my course set to magnetic north.

For someone who is feeling anxious or out of place I would recommend—Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse. I’m currently keeping my eye on Matt Rasmussen for his excellent “Black Aperture.”

In previous challenges, there has been no element of analysis. What value did introducing it for this one provide to you, as a judge, but also to the overall outcome?

RH:

Analysis also helps keep me, as a judge, honest while offering the chance to give the writer what they need most—the feedback that makes them better at what they do. This isn’t to diminish the importance of general encouragement, as insecurity seems to be an occupational hazard for writers, but we can add a tremendous value to the platform by pushing one another to get better.

Also, it was one of the best ways to show you, the participants and readers, the subtleties of poetry that sets it apart from other mediums of art. Worth mentioning: Knox (@kwknox) in particular loves to do it and does it well.

What turns you off in a poem or a piece of writing in general?

RH:

Laziness. Writing that is too obvious and doesn’t respect the reader. Here’s a slight tangent: On Prose. in particular, it is the shitty use of hashtags. Your opinion is not education unless the opinion is about education itself. #fuckingstop

(Note: a more detailed blog piece about hashtags is coming soon, so keep an eye out.)

So what’s next for Roland? Will there be more challenges like this from him?

RH:

Making time to write more so that it is not weeks between posts. I’m putting polish on some creative non-fiction pieces that will get shopped around. The recent experience surrounding the “Poetry Matters” challenge was rewarding for everyone involved in the planning and execution to the point where I am plotting something much bigger in scale.

Stay tuned for that.

Get ready to take some notes, people.

If you’re an indie author, and you’re going it alone, writing your book is only 20% of becoming a household name. As Brenda Perlin stated in her blog piece “So, you’ve written a book. What now?,” our job is to go out and find the people interested in our stories.

But, how the hell do you do that? Where do you even begin?

I have had plenty of authors come to me within my career asking me to help them further their book sales. The first question I always ask them is, “What have you done in terms of marketing?”

Cue the blank expression and the shrug effect that follows.

If you don’t have a publishing deal, which includes marketing, then I have news for you: your book should sell itself, but it won’t. You have to spend quality time getting to know your audience. The goal is to become more than just an e-book. You represent that body of work which, in turn, serves as your individual brand.

I have three steps for marketing yourself and your book(s), which will make your lives a bit easier and your pockets that much fuller.

Step One: Social Media

Yes, I know, it’s the dreaded social media. While we may love to hate it it is an incredibly useful marketing tool.

Some marketers will tell you to pay for advertisements or followers. DO NOT DO THIS. I have many years of research behind me, and I know that paying your way to the top doesn’t work in the long term.

Unfortunately for you, unless you already have deep pockets to pay someone like me, you are going to have to work hard in this arena to get noticed. Pay no mind to the amount of followers you have. Quality of your followers is much more practical and beneficial to you. The impression rate (on Twitter) and your reach and engagement (on Facebook) is your gold.

Watch these stats wisely because they will give you much needed insight into what your followers like to see from you.

Social media is very much trial-and-error but, with the nature of the speed at which social media runs, it’s also forgiving. You make an error, no big deal. In less than 20 minutes, on Twitter at least, it’s old news and no one pays attention to old news.

...

Visit The Official Prose. Blog for the full article by marketing professional, writer, and social media manager, Sammie Thomas (@sammielee46) later today: blog.theprose.com/blog.

I spent years wanting to be a writer but not really wanting to learn to write. I wanted the respect, the interested looks, and to walk into a bookstore and casually whisper to a nearby shopper, “Psst. I wrote that.” Cool right? Unfortunately, that is not how it works.

For some reason no books were publishing themselves in my name as I sat idly by. So, having finally learned a lesson, I set to writing. I knew I didn’t want to deal with traditional publishing. I was too green. Plus, I wanted to learn the publishing process on my own. My mindset was that I would be a published writer come hell or high water. What was the lesson set my writing feet in motion?

There is one thing every single writer has in common: they write. That is step one. Of course, here at Prose., most of you are accomplishing step one every single day. Good work.

Step two is sticking with one project until it is ready to be seen by the world. This can be difficult. It takes over a month, usually, to write the first draft of a novel. That timeline depends on the story’s length and the writer’s schedule, it often takes even longer. Then there is the time spent editing, revising, proofreading, and revising again. Want to know what tedious feels like? Write, edit, and revise your own novel. I will probably never read one of my published books again. I’ve already read each of them five or six times when they come to market.

Step two is the step of discipline. Sticking with your work until it is ready for another set of eyes.

Step three is the step of courage, showing your work to another person. Again, because of Prose., we are used to this kind of thing. I recommend having at least one beta reader, preferably two, to find the inconsistencies in your work. Beta readers read your book in the early stages and give you feedback. There are always little problems the writer cannot see because they are too close to the story. That’s why it is important to become friends with other writers, but I will get to that a little later.

Step four is making the final story revisions (yep, you need to read the whole thing again) and finding a proofreader. Some writers are able to do their own proofreading, and good for them. They have my envy. I have trouble finding my own mistakes. I figure the more time that is spent on my manuscript, the better it will be. Having published novels both ways, with just my time invested and with my time plus three other people’s time invested, I assure you this is true.

Step five, your novel is ready for formatting. I did my first novel entirely for free (including my own proofreading, which was a nightmare). I formatted it with whatever word processing program came free with the version of Windows I had back then. For the second novel, I broke down and bought Microsoft Word. It has all the functions necessary to properly format an e-book and a paperback. Please let me know if there is more interest in formatting an e-book and a paperback, it is something I love to do and will happily dedicate an entire blog post to it.

For step six you upload the manuscript and cover. I have created my own covers and worked with a graphic designer. I think it all depends on the book. For “The Bad” and “Sales for Authors,” I did it myself. For “The Dead Don’t Speak,” and when I published “Tanglefoot” by Donna Myhrer, I worked with a graphic designer. Both methods worked out well.

Step seven is the most time consuming thing you will do as an independent author: promote your book. Promotion is a never-ending effort when you publish your own work. My advice is to be shameless in your efforts. Do not hesitate to mention your books, post about them online, and actively seek new opportunities as a writer. Heck, doing exactly that landed me this blogging gig with Prose. Plus, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Edgar Allan Poe were shameless self-promoters, so consider yourself in good company.

When I mentioned beta reading earlier, I said it was good to make friends with your fellow writers. Now that it is time to promote your work, having writer friends is even better. Your fellow self-publishing authors are an invaluable resource. They know things you do not, they have tried things you hadn’t ever thought of, and they are continually looking for new ways to get the word out about their work, too.

I’ve found two effective avenues to meeting fellow writers.

One is Twitter, writers are all over Twitter. The second is by participating in Facebook book launch parties. There are many, many, many writers' groups on Facebook. Keep an eye on their newsfeed and you will find people asking for volunteers for online book launches. There is a book about Facebook launch parties, where authors do “takeovers.” The book is called, “Your Turn! How to do a Facebook Takeover Like a Boss” by Claudette Melanson.

Once again, because you are already on Prose., you have an advantage over someone like me, when I first started. Prose. is a community of writers. This is a terrific place to make new friends. If you don’t know who to approach or how to not sound like a stalker, send me a message. I am a self-publishing author and I am always looking for new friends. I am eager to connect as well as connect you with people I know.

The bottom line is, if you want to be a writer, then be a writer.

All you need to have to be published is a computer, the internet, and a can-do attitude. Cultivating a positive attitude is the single most important thing a beginning writer can do. It is what keeps you in the game. It increases optimism, helps you see opportunity in failure, and generally keeps the spirits up. I would not be an author without it. If I let a setback or unexpected problem get me down, I would have given up before my first book was ever published.

Until next time...

-Kendall Bailey

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To view the article, with full references and clickable links, please visit The Official Prose. Blog this afternoon at: blog.theprose.com/blog. Be sure also to follow Kendall here and on Twitter @KBaileyWriter.