plutherus

How I Published My Novel
And Why I Made the Decisions I Did

My first novel, Yellow Tape and Coffee, is coming out in two days. It took me years to write it, edit it, re-write it and so on. This post isn’t about all that, though. This post is about publishing.

This is not The One True Way to Publish a Novel. It’s not even really How To Publish a Novel. It is instead merely what I did. What worked (and what didn’t work) for me, and why I made the choices I did, and what I might have done otherwise.

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1203: "Okay, so here's my theory," she said. "It isn't."

1203? Yep - that's right. I've returned to Yellow Tape and Coffee once again.
I'm finally going through all the proofreading edits that Kaitlyn did for me last year, incorporating into Word now, so that I can export with all the formatting that Ingram Sparks wants.
I need to do this before I can get an accurate page count, and layout, so I can generate a cover template, and I need to do that before I can upload the whole thing to their web site.

Once I've done all that, the book itself will be ready to sell on all the best book selling sites. I plan on making it available on various indie reseller sites as well as Amazon, and also, as much as I can, get it into stores and libraries as well. That's the hard part, of course, and the secret to real success.

But first, I need to do all the edits, which means the next few days will be immersed in Yellow Tape and Coffee, so the sentences will be in the 1200s for a bit.

I hope to finish all of them by the end of this weekend.

Pre-orders will go live the week of March 15th, and the book itself will ship on June 18th. This is happening!

When I began writing Yellow Tape and Coffee, I also began putting together a playlist of songs that would relate to it.

I did this because I knew how easy it would be for me to get distracted by some other project, and start to ignore the story I was writing, or just, you know, not write. So this was a way of focusing on the project when I wasn’t directly working on it. I’d listen to the playlist while cleaning or driving or doing any of the other tasks that music is appropriate for.

It worked wonderfully. The songs started sparking imagination for various scenes or characters or relationships. Some of the songs I adopted as theme songs for characters. It worked so well, I did it for my next project as well.

In case you’re curious, the songs from the Yellow Tape and Coffee playlist were:

Furr (Blitzen Trapper) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmBgxP56R1I
A lot of Carl was inspired by this song, and it’s the reason he’s 23 instead of his original 25. The arc with him and Toni doesn’t quite track, but it’s close enough. A bit of Veer’s backstory was inspired here as well.

Wolves (Christopher Beck) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ1jhFyLh6o
Just a background song, and appropriate for any chase scene.

Wolfen One (Heather Alexander) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JAwcL6vGlA
I think of this from Toni’s point of view, though it’s completely not her kind of song, or her style. An early subplot was inspired by it, though it was eventually abandoned.

Cry Wolf (A-Ha) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c53Ii4irZY
This is Michael’s theme song, describing his discovery of and descent into this world.

Blood on the Moon (American Werewolves) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki3ixfB_TYg
This is a Victor song from early days as a werewolf in post-war Germany, and his coming to terms with what he is now.

Werewolves of London (Warren Zevon) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qae25976UgA
Because of course this one had to be there. This song inspired both Victor and Gregor’s days in London after the war, and Victor’s shared history with Veer and their in-jokes.

Curse of the Werewolf (Timeless Miracle) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usylpq-uZmo
Another song of Victor coming to terms with his new life, and the angst thereof.

Return of the Werewolf (Timeless Miracle) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX-pzBkL6Zg
Counterpoint to Curse of the Werewolf, this is Gregor’s theme song. Reveling in, instead of angsting over, this power.

Werewolves (Short Stack) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3mKrnFGSAE
This would have been one of Carl’s favorite songs. There was a comic subplot originally of him trying, and failing, to find a karaoke bar that had this song in it. In a later draft, he mentioned it and quoted a couple of the lyrics, but even that eventually got dropped.

Curse of the Werewolf (Schoolyard Heroes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0jwg7obq1w
Gordon’s song. It’s a more optimistic song than Timeless Miracle’s song by the same name. This song inspired his earliest views of becoming a werewolf as more of a superpower than as a curse, despite the song’s title.

No One Lives Forever (Oingo Boingo) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx7ZS-3n_SY
This song was a huge part of Carl’s arc. I even quoted a few lines of it originally, until I learned that you really can’t do that in books and ended up writing my own lyrics. Both my lyrics and Oingo Boingo’s referred to the “Hour of the wolf”, which I first learned about from a Babylon 5 episode, but whose earliest reference I have found was in a New Mutants comic from the 1970s.

The Howl (Samhain) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlxyshLAxXI
Werewolves as menace. This song inspired some of the more horror-oriented bits of the novel.

Hungry Like the Wolf (Duran Duran) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJL-lCzEXgI
I love this song, so had to include it. This was a major inspiration behind the scene where Carl and Toni first visit the wolf preserve together. The laugh at the beginning could easily be Toni as she steps through the door of the changing room.

She Wolf (Shakira) https://youtu.be/booKP974B0k
This was Shelley’s song. Unfortunately, most of Shelly’s scenes had to be cut because the novel was too long as it was. Possibly some of that material will eventually resurface in the sequel.

So, someone asked recently on Twitter where characters come from. I started to answer a couple of times, but it proved difficult to do in sets of 280 characters. Plus, I’ve been meaning to start updating my blog regularly, so here we are.

[Warning: Minor spoilers for Yellow Tape and Coffee ahead]

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In case anyone's curious about the process here.

I finished my generic query letter
I finished my general synopsis (Thank you so much for your help, Chantel!)

(Both can be/will be edited for each individual query, depending on what the agent wants.)

I've compiled a list of 28 possible agents so far. This list was pared down from about a hundred or so hits on the web sites https://agentquery.com and https://querytracker.net/

I've also ordered the book Writer's Marketplace, which was highly recommended by a number of people.
From agentquery, I ended up finding 24 agents. Then I did queries through querytracker, which has great tools for organizing your agents and tracking where you are at in the querying process for each. It also has tons more information about each one than agentquery.com. About half the agents from my agentquery.com search were already in the list I found at querytracker. Most of the rest were not currently accepting queries. So, I'm not sure I really got anything out of doing the first search in querytracker. A couple of possibles that hadn't shown up in the preliminary agentquery.com search, but they were there.

I pared the list down to 28 based on various criteria, mostly whether they were accepting queries of the kind of thing I was looking for. I did just a brief bit of research on each and ended up with three lists, which will determine the order of querying. The ones that looked most likely to be interested I put in the first list. The least likely, the last.

And, tomorrow, I start going through the list one by one to see exactly what kinds of things they're each most interested in, and sending out personal queries one at a time. A couple of different places recommended querying in batches of five or so per week, so I'm going to go ahead and do that. Since that'll only be a few hours a week, I'll be prepping my next novel in the meantime.

I have just finished uploading the penultimate chapter, Chapter Thirty: "Into The Holy Mountain".
This is one of the longest chapters, at 10,144 (a gain of 162 words from the previous draft. Mostly from just a few sentences I added here and there. I didn't cut too much out this time, either.)

It's also the most complex chapter, comprised of seven separate scenes (most chapters have around 3-4), all tightly connected with all four of my POV characters as they move about separately but intersect with one another.

One more chapter to got. Looks like I'll be able to finish by tomorrow. Still need to do some research for my job interview on Thursday, so hopefully that doesn't take all day.

I have uploaded Chapter Twenty-Eight: Many Meetings to the usual location.
At 8,055 words this one is nearly a thousand words less than the previous draft. I shrunk two scenes down into one, much smaller scene, so that made up for a some expansions in other scenes.

I've just uploaded Chapter Twenty-Six: "Suspicions, Betrayals, and Accusations".
This may be the first chapter that includes a scene for each of my POV characters as they all go about their separate business.
Some parts needed a bit of expansion and as such it's grown to 6,589 words, up from 6,185 in the previous draft.
You can find it in the usual spot. Enjoy!

I've just uploaded Chapter Twenty-Four "Revelations and Deceptions"
We are into the endgame now.
You can find it linked from the usual spot. If you don't have the URL and still want it, it's not too late. There are six chapters and then probably a week of final edits before I start searching for an agent. (Even then, I'll probably occasionally still tweak it based on people's feedback.)

I just uploaded Chapter Twenty-Two: Some also rise.
Woohoo! Two in one day! (With half an hour to spare to still be counted as the same day :)
Nine chapters to go, out of 31. Getting there.
This one is 8,569 words, up by 80 from the previous draft. (I added a bit explaining where Carl was in Forest Park, and why, also why Toni isn't).
Clever readers might have gleaned this information from hints in earlier chapters, but I figured it couldn't hurt to call them it out specifically. I think I did it in such a way that clever readers can still feel clever for figuring it out before I said anything, or notice it the second time they read it, now that they know what's happening. Yes, I may be optimistic here.