Trials of an Unpublished Author – Part II

by Elizabeth Evans Fryer

As an unpublished author, I have met many trials so far in writing My Lost Summer, a memoir about recovering from a coma when I was 13.

In Webster’s 1991 version, the one I bought during my college days, definition 10 for trial is “done or made by way of trial, proof, or experiment.” That’s what writing a book is: creating a draft, sending it out to your preliminary reviewers, and then experimenting with their comments to see if their inclusion improves your manuscript, keeping in line with what you had in mind when you started.

In Part I of this series, I wrote about the questions I asked myself throughout the process of writing my manuscript. Here in Part II, I’ll explain other trials that I have met along the way to getting my book published.
An unpublished writer has no agent, no publisher to help her with editing, layout, printing, publishing, or marketing. She must find providers of these services or do them herself. Writer’s Digest, besides having articles that help me improve the prose of my work, has ads in the back for editors, agents, publishers, etc. So that’s where I started.

I viewed the Web sites of several editors and contacted the one I thought best qualified to edit my book. I submitted the number of pages of my manuscript, and she replied that her fee for 145 double spaced pages was something prohibitive and out of my price range. She didn’t say those exact words, of course, but the price she quoted made my conclusion simple.

Remembering that college students will do anything for money, I contacted a local university to see if any English graduate students, preferably published, could take on my project for $100. Five people responded. Though tempted to hire the Professional Writing & Editing student because I know that’s a good program, for I have an M.A. in PW&E myself, I chose the poet because he represents strengths I lack. And he has a freshly-published book of poetry so he’s good.

He received my manuscript in May, and in late June my editor and I met to go over his comments and suggestions, and their incorporation has truly made the book a better work. At that meeting I gave my editor his $100, and he gave me a promise to look at the next draft.
I incorporated his comments and at the end of August returned the manuscript to him. Mid September arrived, and still, my editor had not contacted me so I sent an e-mail, which met no response. Several weeks, e-mails, and phone calls later, he finally replied that he was so sorry he hadn’t looked at my manuscript again; he was busy flying all over the country promoting his own newly released book, and school had started, which only increased demands on his time.

OK. I was OK with that because I did pay the guy only $100 and I am very satisfied with his input and the book is pretty good as it is and I’m an unpublished author who can’t make too many demands if I don’t have the finances to back them up. I would just have to read the story more critically and apply what I’d learned from my editor’s earlier comments.

So now I had to find which Print On Demand (POD) company I wanted to go with. The decision was easy; I went with Lulu.com. I want total control over my book, from design of the cover to final line editing. Most PODs have packages authors can buy, which include some combination of final editing, cover design, production of some marketing materials, and a set number of books. Lulu.com is a POD that provides no services beyond printing and distribution; it’s the author’s responsibility to submit everything just as they would have it. The Lulu Web site does provide pages of editors and designers for hire, but I don’t need that. I have a network: As luck would have it, my editor’s landlady is a graphic designer.
I hired her, and she is now creating a cover, the final piece to be completed before I send the whole creation to Lulu for production and distribution.

My Lost Summer should be published and ready for purchase by the next issue of Between the Lines. You can read about my marketing plan then.