I'm procrastinating finishing my book proposal, YES, I'm writing it AGAIN, new format this time. I'm following the format from The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published. It's a great resource for any writer (I'm not just saying that because they are helping me with my book). There's samples of EVERYTHING and explanations on why, for example, a pitch letter or proposal is good. I finally started reading it after talking to David Sterry a few weeks ago and wish I had this book a year ago.
It turns out a lot of the stuff I had in my original proposal and cover letter was right. Then two editors, who are actually great editors, gave me all this advice about making my letter and proposal sound "more professional". Instead of the funny stuff I wrote they had me put in boring crap. So now I'm taking the proposal I wrote 1 1/2 years ago and trying to enhance it along the guidelines in Essential Guide.
But it's taking a long time. It's hard to summarize things. And then I have to make them funny. I can make stuff short but then have to re-edit to get in some one liners, then it's too long, then I have to fix it again. Ech.
I'll put it out on my blog when I'm done.
I've also spent the past week editing and rewriting large parts of my book. Again. I thought I would be done by Friday but I was so burned out I decided to work on the proposal instead. Anyway, the final rewrites will be done by Wednesday of this week. I think the book is funnier and I hope I've taken care of the problems people complained about (two stories had "no point other than climbing" and "not enough personal stuff"). I think the ending is much better too.
Maybe someday...this damn thing will be on a bargain bin shelf at Barnes and Noble...
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