There’s nothing quite like opening your finished manuscript… and realizing you forgot to number some of the chapters.
The publishing journey for my debut novel, An Irish Mystery, continues—and let me tell you, it’s been an education! One of the biggest recent milestones? Getting the formatted manuscript back from my publisher.
📘 Working With an Indie Publisher
I want to be clear—I did my homework before signing up. They’re not one of the “Big 5,” but they had solid reviews, and honestly, my experience with them has been brilliant so far. I absolutely love the cover they created, and the internal layout looks fantastic. Seeing the book look like… well, a book, was incredibly exciting.
📝 The Missing Chapters Numbers (Oops)
They sent over the formatted file for my final read-through, and I dove in. But the first thing I noticed? Missing chapter numbers. I panicked. Formatting issue?
Nope. I checked the DOCX I’d sent them months ago—and the numbers were missing there too. Somehow, they’d just… vanished. That one’s on me.
Lesson learned: Always triple-check before hitting send.
✏️ From Proofread to Mini-Edit
I was asked to log changes in a separate doc—page number, what to change, and what to change it to. I settled in, thinking it would be a light proofread.
But here’s the thing: I wrote this book five years ago. After finishing book two, I hadn’t looked back at the first manuscript in a long time. And re-reading it now was… enlightening.
Turns out, I was very fond of a few phrases. Everyone’s brow furrowed. Curiosity? Always piqued. Small things, but noticeable with fresh eyes.
What should’ve been a proofread turned into a full-on polish. Twenty-nine pages of changes later, I sent everything back.
🎢 The Stressful Joy of Final Edits
This whole process has been harder (and longer) than I imagined. And this final round of edits? Easily the most stressful part.
Will people buy the book? Will they enjoy it? Hate it? One-star reviews? Five? You wonder about everything.
But I’m proud of how far this project has come—and no matter what happens, I’m still incredibly excited to get An Irish Mystery out into the world.
And book two? It’s coming.
Thanks for following the journey.
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