2016 is going to be huge

It’ll be published by Artelan Press in spring 2016. And, yes, that makes 2016 a HUGE year for me!

A recap of the major steps along this journey during 2015:

• Winter: I finished draft 3 (or was it 4, or 5?) and enlisted about 10 beta readers. I revised the manuscript again and sent it off to Emma Darwin, a historical novelist who is also an editor. While it was getting worked over, I put on my marketing/publishing hat. I filed a small-business license with my local bureaucracy, started my own publishing imprint, Artelan Press, got my author domain name, amymaroney.com (website to come this spring), and signed up for  Nick Stephenson‘s Your First 10K Readers marketing course.
•  Spring: I got back the critique from my editor and, after a weekend of angst, got to work. There were substantial changes to be made. I put my head down and cranked.
• Summer: with both kids home, plus travel and out of town visitors, work ground to an almost-halt. I did manage to get a gorgeous cover designed by Andrew Brown of Design for Writers. I established a presence on Twitter and went to a writer’s conference.
• Fall: back to the grindstone. Seemingly endless revisions of the ginormous historical section. I finally finished that and got to the much more reasonably sized contemporary section. Meanwhile, I got obsessed with indie author podcasts. My two favorites are Joanna Penn’s The Creative Penn, and The Story Grid with Shawn Coyne and Tim Grahl.

Hello, 2016.