While the majority of EFA members are editors, many of us are writers as well. Welcome to the second edition of our new feature, EFA Member Authors, celebrating the authors among us. In each installment, we’ll take a look at a book by an EFA member and talk about how their book came to be. So read on to enjoy a brief Q & A with the author and an excerpt of their book.
— Sheryl Holmberg, Freelancer Editor in Chief
Intro to Indie Publishing: A newbie-friendly guide to the independent book development process by Tenesha L. Curtis
Tenesha L. Curtis, MSSW, is the founder of Writerwerx University and sites like GetBookHelp.com and WeCanPub.com. A lifelong reader and published author since the late 1990s, she uses her background as a psychotherapist to work patiently and compassionately alongside authors from all over the world to turn their publishing dreams into reality.
Intro to Indie Publishing was born from giving thousands of writers an overview of the major steps in the indie book publication process. This short, less intimidating overview is meant give writers a bird’s-eye view of what the process looks like so they feel more comfortable and confident starting their indie author journey.
We asked Tenesha a few questions about this book and her writing and editing process.
A Chat With the Author
Talk a bit about your writing process.
I generally follow the processes featured in the writing guides that I publish. First, I create a premise and use that to build an outline. Then I use the outline to write the book. I get input from my critique group members and alpha readers along the way in an attempt to avoid writing in a vacuum. It’s so difficult to see our own work with any significant level of objectivity, I think collaborating with readers early on is a key component of writing strong literature of any kind. I do find non-fiction to be a lot less complex to write because I’m simply sharing strategies that I know like the back of my hand. Creating new worlds from scratch, as fun as it is to do, is far more challenging.
Talk a bit about the editing and revision of this book. What did it take to bring it from draft to done?
I do self-revisions on my book, recruit alpha readers to give me feedback, then do some more self-revisions, take a few pieces to the two critique groups I’m part of to receive and incorporate their comments, and finally partner with professional editors on my team to refine the manuscript in preparation for the design phase.
How has working as an editor impacted your writing, and vice versa?
Growing up, I was usually the kid who learned from watching other people make mistakes. The same thing happens with writing. As I review manuscripts for clients, or just read recreationally, I see things that I don’t care for and it serves as a reminder to watch out for those issues in my own writing. This allows for an incremental, passive sort of improvement of my craft.
When it comes to my authorship impacting my editorial work, being an author has been a huge selling point for me when it comes to securing clients. It’s one thing for an editor to say that they have helped other people with their books. But being able to show a potential client concrete evidence that you know what it’s like to be in their shoes as an author, that you’ve published many times over, and that you practice what you preach from an editorial standpoint adds an extra layer of trust and confidence that it’s difficult to achieve if you’ve never been an author, or you published once years or decades ago but don’t have any up-to-date experience with the market.
Being an author also means that I am able to hold a writer’s hand and support them all throughout the book development and publication processes. This gives the writer much more bang for their buck compared to an editor who completes their paid tasks and then sends the writer on their way with no guidance. Additionally, being an author means that I have the ability to communicate with the authors I serve in a clear and compassionate way since I’m educating them from a place of first-hand experience.
What advice and encouragement would you give other writers?
That there is no such thing as a perfect book. Many of the newbie writers I run into struggle with this idea. They may be sitting on a finished manuscript for decades because they don’t think it’s “ready” yet. Even though they use the word “ready,” once we start a conversation about their procrastination, it turns out they want the book to be completely flawless before they publish it. Which, of course, means they won’t ever publish it! I can’t imagine how many wonderful books are not seeing the light of day simply because writers are holding themselves to unrealistic standards.
Where can readers find your book(s)?
My books are available on most sites where books are sold, including Amazon, Audible, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble. Readers can also buy directly from me by visiting my website, TeneshaLCurtis.com.
What is something fun and random you would like people to know about you?
I used to be a psychotherapist, which I think has been helpful when working with writers who struggle with things like low self-esteem or anxiety about the publishing process.
Book Excerpt
Now that you have an initial draft in hand, it’s time to tighten it up. Editing a book often takes months, sometimes even years. It involves you — and other literary professionals and volunteers — reading and re-reading your book. Covering a multitude of problems such as grammatical errors, plot holes, and confusing wording, every editing pass makes the manuscript stronger than the draft before. As I mentioned, there are those who don’t understand that editing is a common part of the book development process, and they therefore skip it, opting to simply publish their first draft. While you technically have this option (you’re in charge of your own authorship, after all), I encourage you to engage in some form of cleanup for your manuscript before you start asking people to pay money to read it. There’s no such thing as a perfect book. Every piece, no matter if it was published independently or by a major traditional publisher, has typos, plot holes, formatting errors, confusing passages, character inconsistencies, and so on. But at least attempting to edit your work will ensure that you are producing the best version of your book that your time and resources will allow. There’s nothing you can do to prevent any mistakes at all from entering your manuscript. There’s nothing you can do to guarantee you’ll never get a review that’s less than five stars. But by making sure you collaborate with other avid readers of your genre and professionals who specialize in the book development process, you can make sure the amount of problems within the book are low enough that hardly anyone will notice because they are enjoying your content so much.
By @Sheryl Holmberg
EFA Board of Directors, Freelancer Editor in Chief