This is the “story behind the story” for the editing and publication of Nahla: Warrior of the North. The first part in this series recounted the writing of the first draft, whereas this part shows the final stages. If you are unfamiliar with the many stages of the publishing process, this article will be informative for you.
Preparation
I am fortunate in that most of my first drafts are rather clean. Some need structural or developmental work, but they are generally in good condition. This was true for Nahla. At the end of writing the first draft, I had a solid manuscript; yet, there was still work to do—lots of reading, editing, and other publishing tasks.
Before I started the editing, I had the most surprising and fortunate email of the year. One of my old lecturers from the Master of Editing and Publishing course at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) asked if I had a manuscript her students could work on for their publication project unit. Having done the unit myself, I knew exactly what would be involved and how valuable such an opportunity would be for me. There were a few options, but we ultimately agreed to work on Nahla. I agreed and signed the contract, but there was a catch. I was initially contacted about the project on 29 June 2023, and I had to get the entire manuscript edited and submitted by 10 June!
The great thing about working on Nahla is that it was such a breeze. To edit an entire novel in 10 days is a hard work, but it feels so awesome to get it done. Granted, I had to take time off from my day job and work on the manuscript day and night, but it still felt good. The majority of my editing tasks involved:
- consistency of in-world terminologies, character names, locations, and events
- further developing the setting and its interlinked sub-elements, particularly in how they related to the overall plot
- deepening the conflict between Nahla and her main adversaries
- improving Nahla’s internal thoughts and other characterisation elements
- general proofreading.
I finished my edits and submitted the manuscript early on 9 July.
Student Editors
USQ has a postgraduate program in editing and publishing, attracting passionate and talented people with a penchant for the written word. The PUB8001 unit sees students apply their skills on a real-world project through the publishing process. When I did it over the summer of 2021/2022, we worked on a mature romance (non-erotic) novel for a Wattpad author. While the genre was not for me, the structure of the unit greatly impressed me.
The PUB8001 unit for Semester 2, 2023 had five students, each with their own publishing experiences, strengths, interests. I had to nominate major and minor tasks that I needed for the project, and the students selected the following from those option:
- Major tasks: Manuscript Assessment, Editing, Design Brief, Formatting, Proofreading, Marketing Plan.
- Minor tasks: Blurb Copy, Price Proposal, Marketing Research Report, Marketing Package, Series Forecast.
I had to do the formatting task, but that suited me perfectly—I love formatting and was very particular about it. I’ll explain more later.
Major Tasks
Manuscript Assessment
A manuscript assessment is a critical analysis of the book. It is a document of great depth, examining the characters, setting, and story at a macro level. A good manuscript assessment will acknowledge a book’s strengths and highlight issues that need attention. The editor uses a manuscript assessment to guide their edits, along with other instructions from the author and other publishing professionals.
The manuscript assessment for Nahla stated that the book had a compelling story with a well-developed protagonist and strong scene descriptions from the limited third-person point-of-view. It also praised the unique setting. The assessment concluded that the draft was of a high quality and only required minor improvements.
Some issues identified in the manuscript assessment included the benefit of a map, various typographical errors, grammatical problems, improvements to some dialogue, and the desire to develop some of the supporting characters (noting that there was plenty of opportunity to do so in Book 2).
Editing: Student
The editing student conducted a copyedit, using the manuscript assessment as a guide. I also supplied a style guide and word list. My style guide uses a slightly modified version of the Chicago Manual of Style (17th Edition). The student’s edits corrected several punctuation errors, issues with consistency, phrasing problems, and typographical errors. She also made lots of suggestions for me to further develop the story, such as more characterisation for Prince Myel and the pacing of the penultimate chapter. The editor made 1,275 revisions in the manuscript and offered suggestions in 277 comments.
The editor’s report noted that the story:
- was fast-paced
- had detailed and thrilling action sequences
- had simple and impactful language
- had a strong female protagonist
- had a stirring plot with several unpredictable twists
- had a cliffhanger ending with several plot points for future books.
The editor provided a detailed style sheet of her own, which helped her immensely during her task.
Editing: Author
After the student returned the edited manuscript, it was time for me to work through all 1,275 edits and 277 comments to further improve the book. I had to do it during the two-week mid-semester break. But I didn’t have the entire two weeks to work on the edits—I also had to format the book and send submit it for the proofreading student! Being no stranger to a challenge, I broke up the editing task into smaller chunks and completed it in about a week and a half. Then I did something that was both dumb and smart.
Around this time, I had bought a subscription for ProWritingAid. I figured now was as good a time as any to give it a good try. Finishing the new draft, I decided to run ProWritingAid to see how else I could improve the manuscript. Well, it returned over 1,800 suggestions! Now I had a problem: Do I leave the manuscript as is, or work through the ProWritingAid suggestions and risk overshooting my formatting deadline. I chose the harder of the two. Thankfully, these were relatively minor suggestions, but it still took all day to smash through them. I’m glad I did it, because the manuscript came out even stronger.
Design Brief
A design brief is a technical document prepared for the formatter and printer. I had some requirements for Nahla which were non-negotiable, such as the book format (B-format paperback), the page extent, and fonts. The design student filled in the gaps by providing details for the front and endmatter, cover art, back cover design. A 12-page front cover analysis filled with example images completed the brief.
The student also submitted a mock internal layout as a visual representation of what the interior printed pages of the book might look like. I remember looking at it and thinking that it was very close to what I envisioned. As the formatter, I used the design brief to inform my formatting task. Since I also had to organise cover art, I studied the examples and analysis carefully. However, something interesting happened with the cover art, which I will explain later.
Formatting
I love formatting. Love it! I could see myself doing it as a side hustle. Nahla was slated for print and ebook publication, but I only had to prepare the print file for this task. This is because there are always issues that need fixing at the formatting stage, so there is no point wasting time formatting the ebook as well. The ebook can be done later.
I use Adobe InDesign for my print formatting and Atticus for ebooks. I use a standard typeface, Garamond, for my books. It’s part of my Delta-V Press brand. Therefore, many of the technical details were already set up from when I did my Space Trip books. However, Nahla had some extra features that I hadn’t done in other books. Such features included:
- handwritten letters
- epigraphs, which are introductory quotes at the beginning of chapters
- scene break glyphs, which I created in Canva
- QR codes in my endmatter
- a solid black background for the spine and back cover, and a snapshot image on the spine.
Nahla is also the first book in which I have included an organisational chart. I figured it would be helpful to have a visual aid to understand the organisation of the King’s Legion. I created the chart in Canva, using a beautiful ornamental style. It looked good in my physical proof copy.
The formatting took only a few days, but I submitted the final product a day late. I blame my day lost actioning the ProWritingAid edits, but it was okay. The proofreading student was cool.
I also wanted a map in my book. While I was not able to get a map in during my formatting task, I did manage to find an artist named Keir Scott-Schrueder, who later created an amazing hand-drawn design. He is now my go-to map artist.
Proofreading
Proofreading looks at more than just spelling errors. The proofreading student had a big task to do. She studied the layout of the print file to make sure it was of the highest quality. All 300 pages had to be carefully examined for errors in text and layout. Headers, page numbers, widows, orphans, runts, rivers (simple, but technical typesetting terms) were all checked. The student produced 166 comments that I had to review and address in a second round of formatting. She went above and beyond her role and also provided some editorial comments, which were much appreciated.
Errors usually find their way into the final product, despite several human eyes and editing software scans. If you spot an error, you can claim a tuckerisation! I reward readers who tell me about spelling and other errors in my books. Read my Tuckerisation Policy for more information.
Marketing Plan
I suck at marketing, which is why I love letting other people tell me how to do it. The marketing student created an awesome 15-page marketing plan which focused on three main areas:
- how I can market Nahla
- how I can market myself and my brand as an author
- how I can market my website and newsletter.
My marketing situation is complicated in that I am not on social media. I used to be, and my accounts still exist for posterity, but I do not use social media anymore as an author (or privately, for that matter). The marketing student was quietly joyous about doing some non-social media strategies.
Goals and opportunities identified included my website and newsletter, my meagre presence on Wattpad and Goodreads, taking advantage of online forums and book clubs, and crowdfunding on Kickstarter and Patreon. These were al excellent ideas that I plan on implementing in some way—I just need to schedule the time. It was bad timing, however, because when the student was preparing this marketing plan, I was just learning about Substack, and I decided to try it for the second Nahla book. Using Substack will adjust the marketing strategy because I will no longer use Wattpad and part of my crowdfunding might come from the new platform. Still, the marketing plan gave me great ideas and helped me to think critically about how I market and promote myself and my products.
Minor Tasks
The minor tasks were smaller, but no less important for the project. These were:
- Blurb Copy: The student provided several example blurbs for Nahla and a rundown of the critical elements of blurbs.
- Price Proposal: The student examined similar stories on Amazon and other bookstores and suggested competitive recommended retail prices and promotional strategies for the ebook and print book.
- Marketing Research Report: The student conducted a thorough research of crowdfunding platforms and presented best practice tips and recommendations for Nahla.
- Marketing Package: The student created a great package of outside-the-box marketing ideas that I could use to spread the word about Nahla, my website, and me as an author. I have already implemented some of them.
- Series Forecast: The student proposed ideas on how to progress the story based on the events and characters in Nahla. It was incredibly fun to read whether her thoughts aligned with my plans. Most of them were spot on, but I was happy to note that the biggest twists still remained a mystery.
Author Feedback
It was my role as the author to offer feedback on every student task submitted. This was not feedback against their marking rubrics or assessment outcomes. Rather, it was feedback as a form of professional development. Despite being asked to only provide a few sentences, I often found that my feedback was detailed, specific, and sincere. The unit lecturer greatly appreciated the efforts I made in teaching the students from my own knowledge and experience.
Cover Art
I had to source cover art for Nahla, and I thought I had it all figured out. I created something in Midjourney, an AI program, which I intended to show an artist. It perfectly captured the look of Nahla and the general aesthetics of the story. I showed it to an artist and asked if they could use it as a basis for a human-created alternative. To my surprise, they said the artwork was good enough to use as is! Now, this shocked me, because for so long I had not wanted to use a fully AI artwork as cover art. But now my mind changed. Publishing a book is expensive, so if one artist was not bothered by an AI artwork, then one author (me) would be happy to use it. If I encounter any problems in the future, I could always replace it with another artwork.
Overall Remarks
Overall, I am extremely happy with the work of USQ students Emily Brain, Promita Guha, Melissa Hattingh, Lynette Hanlon-Nix, and Carla Scott, as well as the intense coordination of their lecturer, Shayla Olsen. They worked very hard, and I am eternally grateful for their efforts.
If you are thinking about studying editing and publishing at the postgraduate level, I highly recommend the Master of Editing and Publishing program at the University of Southern Queensland. You can also complete a shorter graduate diploma (like I did) or graduate certificate.
Final Steps
This article has hopefully shed light on the amount of work required to produce a novel. A lot of it gets taken for granted until you do it yourself or you know someone who does it. Yet, there are still more things that need to happen before Nahla gets published:
- new files need to go to the printer
- the ebook needs to be created and tested on devices
- the book needs time to be catalogued on retailer websites
- a copy of the book needs to be submitted to the National Library of Australia
- a Goodreads entry needs to be created
- run marketing and promotions on several platforms
- my Advanced Reader Team need to review it on relevant platforms.
Publication
Nahla: Warrior of the North will be published in March 2024 in print and ebook formats. This page will be updated when that happens.