The road from manuscript to book is long. Not necessarily in terms of time, as small publishers can work a lot more nimbly than the big publishers who are driven more by stock prices and quarterly results than the creative outcome from their authors. Publishing a book is a complex endeavor encompassing the following (not an exclusive list): editing, proofing, typesetting, formatting, cover creation, marketing & PR plans, metadata uploading to the countless sites that will be selling the book (from Amazon, Apple to Smashwords and then some.)

When I read what one publisher wrote, I got upset. I mentioned her in my previous post where she says that her best tip for success is for writers to stick to one genre. Then she also makes some weird comments about clothing and behaving appropriately. Did the statement affect me so strongly because she could’ve meant me? Might I have been more successful if I’d stuck to one genre? Yet what genre would that be?

For twenty-three years I’ve been writing a year-end letter to my closest friends and family. Feedback has decreased over the years as fewer people use e-mail to communicate. It’s all on social media these days. Being of a certain age, though not old, I have the privilege to decide what I want to do, so I invite you on a journey to look back on the year we’ve had as well as a short outlook on what might await us beyond the chasm of midnight on December 31, 2022.

With every new genre I’ve tackled I had to learn new things, and that is one of the most rewarding things about my art. Not only do I learn more about the human condition, but I also get to become a better writer in the process. So far, my editors seem to agree with that assessment.