BY TERRI WAGNER
Getting your book to that final stage of publishing requires a lot of effort. You have to re-work, re-do, re-edit just to get to a final writing stage. But it doesn’t end there.
Manuscript in hand, you search diligently for just the right publisher and send it off. After an agonizing wait, you hear from the publisher that you have been accepted. Celebration.
Then a contract appears. You sign, more celebration. But it doesn’t end there.
Now you deal with an editor, maybe more than one. That editor may make you justify every statement, every word, and every voice in the entire story. You will be pulling your hair out. The finished product may vaguely resemble that innocent manuscript you sent in or may be not. But it doesn’t end there.
Several people will assist in the proofing stage. You may still have to make changes, alter some things, check spelling. Those small things well done tell the reader you have a polished, finished product. But it doesn’t end there.
Next on the agenda will be advanced reader reviews. And . . . no, it doesn’t end there.
Finally, the polished, well-checked, finished product is ready to roll out. Now the hard part begins . . . how to market your book.
On October 12, Mr. Gunn and Dr. Bohemia will hit an online bookstore near you.
Take my advice and RUSH to get your copy. This book has been put through the mill, checked, rechecked, and polished. It is a gem in the Steampunk genre.
Mr. Gunn will amuse you to no end. If there was a character I could relate to it’s him. He seems to drift from one crisis to the next, putting it all together just in the nick of time.
Gunn is aided and abetted by a fletching and delightful wife who can cook, nurture, and use a gun better than any one else, including the bad guys. And yes of course there are bad guys.
Dr. Bohemia is an enigma intrigued by devices he somehow knows are ethically wrong. He proves the old adage that you never really know who your friends are until there is a crisis.
When Mr. Ford sent his manuscript in, I doubt he knew the process it was going to go through; but I think he will agree it was worth.
Set in Victoria England, laced with steampunk devices and intrigue, it’s a a great twist on the always well-liked save-the-world-from-itself theme.
Editor Terri Wagner lives, works, and mentors authors from her home in Alabama. Her latest project, Mr. Gunn and Dr. Bohemia by Pete Ford, will be released October 12, 2013. Her next project, Shades and Shadows: a Paranormal Anthology, will be released on October 31, 2013.