Okay, I'm sorry

But I really am back now :)

As you may know, in my day-to-day life, I am a teacher. As you may also know, school is back in session in New York as of a few weeks ago. Along with a hectic summer (and not at all an author summer as I had wished), the start to this new academic year has been wildly overwhelming, stressful and exhausting. Because of this, I haven’t been able to write (😢), edit, not even proofread a thing. As I’m getting my sea legs, so to speak, in this new academic year, hopefully, I’ll be able to get back into writing. Starting with this newsletter.

First thing I want to mention is my goals from the start of summer. Let’s review, shall we?

• Goal one: complete one manuscript.

• Goal two: Gain 5,000 more followers on social media

• Goal three: Gather 100 more reviews on my books

I’m pleased to announce that I have completed ONE goal this summer! And hey, one is better than none. I’ll even argue it’s the most important goal I had. I finished a manuscript! I wrote the words “The End” on the last page and I sent it off to my beta readers to be ripped and torn apart.

While I didn’t meet my second and third goals, I can admit that it was because of a complete lack of trying. I actually fell off of social media for a while, due to a bit of burn out and a general lack of ideas. I’m not taking that too hard at the moment. I’ll get back into it when the time is right.

ANYWAY, I’ve got a bit of a dilemma at the minute. I’m finishing up my edits for my newest manuscript and I’m thinking…should I query this manuscript? In the writing biz, “querying” means sending the manuscript to agents to see if they will auction it to tradition publishers where they will take control of the printing, selling and advertising side of things. Not that I’m even sure my manuscript would get picked up, I still am not sure if I shouldn’t just give it a try.

That’s where you come in. Below I will list the pros and cons of both tradition publishing and self-publishing and together (please 🙏🏼), we will come to a decision.

Tradition Publishing

• Pros:
  - won’t have to do any of my own marketing
  - no money up front, actually will be paid for writing books (depending)
  - I’ll actually have someone helping me with all this

• Cons:
  - could wait months/years for a response and still get rejected
  - loss of creative control, would have to make whatever changes the publisher/editor wants
  - might not be a good fit for what I want, schedule-wise

Self-Publishing

• Pros:
  - I’ve already done it twice, pretty much got the hang of it
  - can make the book/cover anything I want, I have final say with everything
  - control of my timeline, things happen when I want

• Cons:
  - have to do all my own marketing, which I’m really not great at
  - not reaching as many people as I would like
  - expensive - I have to pay for everything myself

So, as you can see, it is not a simple decision. I leave it to you, fateful friends. What do you think I should do?

BUT WAIT - I will leave you with this: I am excited to embark on NaNoWriMo this November (National Novel Writing Month). I’ve already got an awesome story in mind and I’m itching to get it down on paper (so to speak).