publishing – Page 2 – Meilo Zaborowski: Author

The world: -exists-, Me:

Goal 1) Publish The Atheist’s Inferno

My Goal: Finish final proofread/edit by end of May; format ebook, handle keywords & categories, and publish by end of June
Where I planned to be: Working on proofread
Where I am: Done with the proofread
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Got a little worried the weather was gonna stop me earlier, but thankfully we’ve only been losing power for a minute or two at a time.

I decided my budget is blown enough already, and I’m running out of time, so I’m forgoing getting a final proofread from Audrey. I’ve run the manuscript through a basic grammar and spelling check through Google Docs, and parsed through Grammarly suggestions on word choice and punctuation. Then I combed through Audrey’s comments again for the formatting and punctuation fixes she sprinkled in, and checked for some of my most common “errors” (like putting an “s” at the end of toward and backward…try as I might, I just can’t take the Texan out of me.) I’m pretty confident that anything more would just be piddling, so I’m calling the proofread done.

It kind of falls somewhere between the proofread and actually formatting the ebook, but next week I’m going to finalize my chapter and scene breaks before importing the manuscript into Kindle Create. We’re getting close!

I regularly spill coffee on myself, and the tea isn’t getting special treatment

Goal 1) Publish The Atheist’s Inferno

My Goal: Finish editor’s revision by end of April, finish final proofread/edit by end of May, 60 pages per day
Where I planned to be: 348 pages typed in, editor’s revision COMPLETE
Where I am: 348/348 pages typed in, editor’s revision COMPLETE
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Well, the weather seriously threw a wrench in my schedule. There was a huge storm that came through Wednesday evening and knocked out power at my house until almost midnight, so I wasn’t able to get anything done. Thankfully, I was already a little ahead, so I grinded through my 60 pages last night, a lot of which were notebook paper with nothing but handwritten words I had to type in, so I just barely finished before I had to shower and go to bed. (I also went through the other day and pulled out all the pages that were clean, so that knocked out quite a bit as well.) That left me with a whopping 33 more pages to deal with tonight, again with a lot of handwritten pages to type in.

But I am DONE with the editor’s revision! And in equally awesome news, I now have a total wordcount of 54,781.

You’re such an inspiration for the ways that I will never ever choose to be

The good news is, I saw my doctor last Monday and she definitely thinks my sleep issues are due to my current dose of Adderall being too high, but I wasn’t vibing on the previous dose, so she’s switching me to Concerta. The bad news is, because my timing is awesome and I just had the Adderall refilled 2 weeks ago, I can’t fill the Concerta until next Monday. /o\

Goal 1) Publish The Atheist’s Inferno

My Goal: 1hr a day min, finish editor’s revision by the end of Feb
Where I planned to be: All new scenes completely written
Where I am: Still have a few scenes left to do
On Target or Behind: Eh.

How’s It Going:
Writing these new scenes is proving to be a lot more difficult than expected. However, I’ve finalized my copy/description, so that knocks me down to 4 steps to complete in the next 4 months, so I’m still on track even if I have to take all of March to finish the editor’s revision.

Although, I did have some fun with the descriptions in one new scene where Madison is stoned out of his mind. XD

Magenta feelings take up shelter in the base of my spine

So between my work schedule and my sleep/wake cycle, lately I’ve been having trouble getting much work done, especially on the weekends (when I’m prone to sleep through entire days). I realize this is gonna sound late and redundant, but I feel like I need some accountability again.

~~He says, as if time is real and anyone but my dad is reading this…~~

GOAL 1) Publish The Atheist’s Inferno

My clear target is: Publish The Atheist’s Inferno
My reachable deadline is: June 30, 2023
My working days are: Wed-Fri
My method of measuring progress: Steps completed, page or scene count when possible, otherwise time or estimation, I guess
My end goal: Slam that publish button
My daily goal, and number of available days: 1 hr a day min (page/scene count will vary, depending), 3 days a week, at least one step completed each month
My leverage — WHY I need to do this: Well, it’s not gonna publish itself. XD

To break this down a little further, the essentials I need are:

~~Title~~ – Already done.
~~Cover~~ – Nailed it.
Copy – This is the description blurb that goes on the Amazon sale page. Should be cake.
E-book – This can be further broken down into: completing the editor’s revision (my current task), proofread and/or final edit, and formatting the e-book.
Keywords & Categories – No one really sees these but me, but they are super-duper important to Amazon. Keywords are unfortunately a super-duper pain in my ass. Categories are a breeze by comparison, so I’m not even really counting it as separate.

Thankfully, a lot of the hard work I put into this site, and researching publishing and marketing for The Atheist’s Prayer, means less work for me now to publish The Atheist’s Inferno. I know where to find the resources I need, and I’m already on the other side of “What if?” (In fact, I may go against the grain here and not even bother with the email list stuff this time, or just go minimal on it.)

So. 7 items, down to 5 left to complete, with just over 5 months to do it. Makes the math real easy, even if a couple of those items can, and most likely will, be done in under a week. Realistically, the end of June is probably way more lenient than I need to be, but. Nothing wrong with being early.

Goal Update 5/2

How is it already May?

In unrelated news, I’ve finished one class, and I’ll be taking my last final for the other on Tuesday. Then I will have unlimited time to work on all this until I get called back into work. And when that will be, I don’t know.

GOAL 1) PUBLISH SKOS

My Goal: Spend at least 10 mins, 3 days/week minimum
Where I planned to be: Spent at least 30 mins
Where I am: At home, where else?
On Target or Behind: On top, or underneath?

How’s It Going:
You wanna know what the worst part is about Photoshop tutorials on YouTube? I’m using an ancient version of Photoshop, and everyone else is using Creative Cloud. Seriously, I’m probably the only person left on the planet still using CS2. Which means I don’t have a lot of the fancy shit in newer versions.

But I make do. (Because fuck Creative Cloud.)

I’m really taking my time on these covers, tweaking them, leaving them alone for a while, then coming back to tweak some more. Trying to get the feel right. I’m pretty happy with what I’m getting so far.

GOAL 2) REVISE SYCU

My Goal: 2 Lessons per month/ 1 Lesson every 2 weeks; 3 chapters/13 scenes per day
Where I planned to be: Lesson 8 finished
Where I am: Lesson 8 finished, Lesson 9 finished
On Target or Behind: On Target (and now way ahead, woo!)

How’s It Going:
The last half of Lesson 8 is always fun. Pretending to be an angry reader and intelligently ripping the book to shreds in a 1-star review? Freeing, I’m telling you. And I forgot how simple Lesson 9 is. Which is good, I like forward movement.

I also think metal music is stimulating to my creative brain or some shit because that’s what I was listening to when I did Lesson 9. I wrote a LOT about what I wanted this book to be, what I learned, and what I want the reader to take away from it. Thank you, Periphery. I love all their stuff, but I was specifically listening to Juggernaut: Alpha, Juggernaut: Omega, and Periphery II. (Links go to YouTube playlists, for anyone interested.)

Fun fact: The lyrics to Periphery’s Scarlet (link to YT, lyrics in the description) weirdly fit this story. I promise it’s not intentional. Ignore the video, though… Actually, you know what. Don’t.

On to Lesson 10… and the dreaded Monastery. Yes, you read that right. And it’s just about as much fun as it sounds. (I still prefer it to Lesson 7, though!) As it is the Monastery, the next post or two will be sparse until I’m done.

GOAL 3) SURVIVAL

My Goal: 500 WPD, 1500 WPW
Where I planned to be: 7500 words
Where I am: 7629 words
On Target or Behind: On Target

How’s It Going:
Got a little carried away, but I just can’t stop myself some days. It’s so much fun! And I love these characters already. In fact, I just introduced one during my Friday stint, and she is interesting. I’m excited to see where it all goes.

I think I’ll give y’all a snippet of this new character, whose name right now is Carly.

NOTE: The following material is a copyrighted excerpt from raw, unedited first draft, which may contain typos and spelling or grammar errors. Please do not point out corrections or make suggestions as I will not see them during revision. Please do not quote this material, as it may not survive to final draft.

When the checker had finally scanned and bagged the last can, he tallied up her total. Carly pulled out some cash, quickly counting what she had left. It would be enough for one more store.

Once she was free from the checker, cart now full of double bagged cans, she shoved the cart away and out the door to her car. The trunk and backseat of her Passat were already full, a piece of cardboard shoved behind the seats to prevent the mountain of cans from flying forward over the center console.

She unloaded the cart into the floorboard of the front passenger seat, stacking them until they were level with the seat, then stacking them across.

One more store was probably about all her car would be able to handle too.