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I love December – it’s the start of summer, my favourite season, it’s Christmas time and here in Australia almost everyone takes at least two weeks off work for the summer holidays. The first half of the month I spent typesetting my book (learning how to do that as well!) and producing the final files ready for print. The second half of the month was spent relaxing and having fun with family and friends (I’m posting this article on January 7th, as this is the first day I’m back to work!).
So, back to December and what I learned about publishing:
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November’s been a pretty busy month, but also one full of much excitement! I had the cover design created for Laura the Explorer (read about the design process here), I had the copy-edit done on the manuscript, I attempted NaNoWriMo again and I did all of this while trying hard to entertain my new puppy. Speaking of, say hello to Ruby!
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I’m so excited to be able to share the final cover design for Laura the Explorer, created by the awesome Australian designer Hazel Lam, and also to announce that Laura the Explorer will be published in January 2019!
Here is the final front cover:
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Having just started the process of getting my book professionally edited and getting a great cover designed, I wanted to share my best tips and advice for anyone else seeking to self-publish in Australia. There is plenty of advice available online (The Creative Penn is a great place to start), but here’s a quick run-down of things I’ve learnt first-hand in the last few months:
Book Editors
How to find them
The Freelance Editors Network: https://www.fen.net.au/
READ every single editor’s info section on here. Make a short-list of editors who work in your genre, have decent experience and sound promising. From your shortlist, click through to each of those editor’s personal websites. Browse through their testimonials and check out what other authors they have worked with. Make sure they do the right kind of edit for you (i.e. a copy edit and a structural edit are very different – and not all good copy editors are cut out to be structural editors!)
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Where, oh where, has 2018 gone? I’m finding it difficult to believe that we’re halfway through August and that Spring is literally only weeks away (though that fact I am LOVING!)
In March this year I married the love-of-my-life and went on an amazing honeymoon to the Cook Islands and New Zealand. Our wedding day was perfect, but let me just say that wedding planning is a definite way to decimate whatever writing time I usually manage to claw together! After finishing the last round of edits on Laura the Explorer at the end of January, I planned to take a writing hiatus until after I got back from my honeymoon in April. Not only was I feeling drained creatively at the beginning of the year, but the honeymoon itself was a fantastic time to recharge. I returned ready to get back into writing but was railroaded by my day-job, which had managed to grow from being a part time thing to a full-time stress-monster in my absence. Fast-forward a few months and I feel like I’m finally getting back on track.
So – on to the book updates!
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About
Welcome to the website of Sarah Begg, Australian writer and independent author.