On Sunday, I submitted my manuscript to my editor, David. He said he would be working on it through Tuesday or Wednesday. To my surprise, he actually finished it on Monday and sent it over. I saw the email come through just before we sat down for dinner. Horrible time to see the email, because all I could think about at the dinner table was scarfing down my meal just so I could go and get rolling on the editing.
So, that is pretty much what I did. I sat down at my desk at just after 7:30 and got to work. I worked non-stop on it until just after 10:00. I was actually pretty surprised on how quickly I knocked it out. I wasn’t tired, but I was spent. I thought about starting the formatting exercise but decided to hold off on that until this morning.
I woke up at 5:15 and hit snooze for the first time in ages. I am usually up with the first alarm, but today was different. I was still pretty tired. Why, because I laid in bed last night, thinking about the book. I think I laid there for at least an hour before my eyes finally closed for the night. After the 9 minutes snooze, I was up and down to my desk. I was able to get all the formatting done, and was starting on the title page info,before it was time to head to work.
Usually, I can sneak in a bit of book work at lunch or during breaks throughout the day, but today was pretty busy. For this week supposed to be a slow week, I have been busier at work than normal. Weird. Just before lunch, I got an email from Kyle, and he asked to see the edits from the other editor. I sent him both the marked up copy and the edited copy I finished last night. He called back a bit later and asked if I could talk about a few additional comments he had. I said sure, but it wasn’t until I got home before we talked through them. All in all, they were good edits, and I spent another few hours cranking them out. I then turned my focus to getting the rest of the book pages wrapped up. I finished the title sheet, acknowledgement page and author page. The book is done!
After a bit of adjusting of the publication file, I wrote the PDF and uploaded it. I went through a series of checks on the interior layout, and everything looks great. They are reviewing it now, and I should be able to move to the next step tomorrow sometime. I am going to start working on the Kindle file next, and am going to shoot for Friday for the upload there. Maybe Thursday if I can get it all done early.
So, what does all this mean? It means I am going to publish early! Not just early, but 10 days early! Actually, back in July, I set my initial goal of being published by my birthday, and that is Saturday. It looks like I will beat it by a day or two.