Hi !

It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another behind-the-scenes book update!

(As a reminder: I'm planning on sending these updates weekly-ish. If you get sick of them, you can hit "unsubscribe" at the bottom and it won't affect your access to the other freebies I've promised you.)

It's deadline day!

Today is an exciting day – or perhaps more accurately, a day to breathe a sigh of relief. Because I’m just about to submit what should be the absolutely FINAL version of the book!

The funny thing about the publishing process, I’ve discovered, is that you have about four different “final” deadlines.

First, I submitted what seemed to me like a pretty final version: it seemed 95% done, and like it would only need a few tweaks to have it ready for publication.

(lol)

That version then came back with so many tracked changes and comments I could barely make sense of it all, and I had another deadline to address everything. I pretty much ended up doing a full rewrite of a couple of chapters at this stage.

Then an external editor went through it and graced it with yet more red ink. At this point, we were tweaking individual words, rather than big ideas.

And THEN, what’s just happened now: I saw it all laid out in the format of the final book and had a read-through to make sure everything looked OK. 

Here's how it looks right now:

And that’s it! Once someone's dealt with those little yellow notes, the book goes off to the printers.

Promo mode begins

Coming from a background in self-publishing where you can make tweaks at any time, it’s strange and a bit scary to have a “final” book three months before it comes out.

Believe it or not, by publishing standards that’s pretty tight – normally you’d have the book finished six months in advance.

It’s actually a good thing though, because now I can’t fiddle with the book I can give my full focus to promoting it and giving it the best launch possible.

That’s where my attention is going from now onwards, and I’ll share some of my plans in next week’s update.

(I'll also – hopefully – have the book's website ready, and you can be the first to see it.)

Thanks for your help!

Finally, thank you to everyone who replied with their opinions on what the best pre-order bonuses would be (I think I’ve replied to everyone individually). 

It’s sparked some interesting ideas, and I really appreciate your help!

Any questions or anything I can help with until the next update, you know where I am.

Thanks!

Rob