14. LIVE 4.2.
In case you’ve decided to go self-publishing, in the Live stage, you’re at the beginning of an uphill road. You need to be a producer, publicist, marketing and advertising, and emperor.
13. LIVE 4.1. YEAH!
Live is the time of your life. It’s when you have to take on other roles and try and sell your book. Think of the Live phase as if it’s a trial period—what if I was a producer, and a marketing person, and a salesperson, and a publicist, and my grandmother?
12. BETA 3.4.
Now you’re entering the final stage of Beta—working with an editor to get your book in the best shape ever. You want your baby to be an Olympic. A gold medal winner.
11. BETA 3.3.
When you get to a point where you feel satisfied with your novel, both story and style, it’s time to put to work those friends that have agreed to be your beta readers. They have the advantage to be your first readers and brag about it when your name will shine in the history of fiction writing, while you have the advantage of fresh eyes reading the story you’ve worked on for so long that you can’t be objective anymore.
10. BETA 3.2.
After months of work, you’ve finally reached the end of draft one. For some writers, draft one is like this ball of fur spat by a cat. It’s ugly, hairy and wet, but it contains your story like a gem hidden under layers of slime.