I've been outlining the books, but this time, I decided to create an even more detailed outline. In fact, it ended up being over 12,000 words. During this first phase, I figure out almost all the elements of the plot. I've also been working on the outlines for books six, seven, and eight.

The first draft is the most challenging and time-demanding phase of the process. Once I get the first draft completed, things start to speed up. Here are a few highlights from my experience writing the first draft:

During the first edit, I work with one to two edit partners who read the text and give me feedback. In the second edit, I'm focused on story-level elements: continuity with the other books, important clues, and adding character emotion during dialogue. I love this stage, and it tends to go quickly. This is also where I often have to make the hard decision to cut certain scenes or significantly shorten scenes.

In this stage, I'm going through to make sure the clues make sense. Clue-making and clue-finding can be a complicated process, but it shouldn't be confusing. I'm also going through to make sure clue-details are correct, dates are accurate, and checking other continuity details. For Book 5, this is turning out to be a very demanding edit.

This takes me most of one day. I use a software called Vellum to format the interior and Photoshop to format the cover.

Volume book printing usually takes 3-5 weeks. However, for my beta copies, I use a service that prints and ships the books in about 7-10 days. It's about 3-4 times more expensive than volume print runs, but definitely worth it. I believe the beta process makes the difference between an okay book and a really good book.

This is incredibly fun and takes only a couple of days. I now have a thermal printer that can print and cut labels. Our family creates an assembly line and we package between 100 and 150 copies to send to our beta readers. Once in the mail, it takes about 2-5 days for the beta team to get their copies.

This time around, my third edit round will focus on attribution and beats. These are the things characters do and the things the main character feels when they speak. In my early drafts, there are a lot of what one of my edit partners, Avery, calls talking heads. I'll also be editing for sentence-level clarity, and deleting segments that I've come to realize are unnecessary.

I now collaborate with my daughter on the illustrations. We draw them using the pencil and watercolor tools in Adobe Fresco. We'll be working on these throughout the writing process.

7/15/24 - 80% Beta Reader Team has sent in feedback. Now, I'll be working through the feedback to see watch changes I want to make. Sometimes the scope of changes can be small, and other times it's significant. Surveying the feedback, I still have a lot of work to do :)

During this phase, my beta reader team is sending me feedback via a google form. I'm looking for parts of the story that might be confusing, need an illustration, or might be slow. I actually learned about this process from a Pixar documentary on the making of Finding Nemo. Most of the beta feedback comes in within 2 weeks from the date I mail the packages.

I have a small team who I work with to proofread the books. This is not my beta reader team. In fact, I ask my beta readers to not do any proofreading (because I want to hear about their experience of the story). The proof team is sending me edits at the same time as the beta team.

7/22/2024 - With the beta feedback in, I still have a lot of work to do. I also have a good scope of work. That means I can schedule a ship date of late Early to Mid-October 2024. The book will publish about a week after I start shipping the presale books.

When I get the beta feedback in from my 100+ readers, then I have a good sense of the scope of the changes I need to make. If I need to make significant story-level edits, then this might push my publication date out a bit. But, once I have the beta edits done, I can order the presale copies and establish two timeframes: 1) When I plan to begin mailing presale copies, and 2) When I will publish to Amazon. These timelines might shift depending on shipping and printing times, or unexpected interruptions like illness.

This take a few weeks. During this time, I'm getting a lot of packaging prepared so that we can send the presale copies out to all of you who helped us kickstart this project.

- I plan to begin mailing copies the week of October 14th. We'll start with orders placed in June, and work our way to October orders.
- When I print your shipping label, you'll get an email with a tracking number to follow your shipment. After being mailed, you should receive your copy in 2-5 days.
- All the pre-sale books are packaged (80% of the work), and USPS will pick them up on Oct. 15th.

- After all the presale copies are in the mail, I'll hit the publish button on Amazon. This can take their systems anywhere from 12-72 for the books to become available online.