What I’ve Learned After Publishing My First Book

When I first dreamed of being a published author as a little kid, there wasn’t much to the vision I had other than walking into a bookstore one day and seeing my very own hardbound book sitting on a shelf. The feel of the smooth book cover and the rustle of paper with bright, bold black ink on my fingertips was all I could picture. 

(Releasing a Debut Novel Later in Life.)

Even as I got older, that dream changed little, although the publishing industry had. What was once a common pastime of perusing bookstores or library shelves for new things to read quickly disappeared with the onset of the Amazon brand. By the time I finished college—I couldn’t think of another time I could find a bookstore to look at the latest reading releases.

On December 2, 2023, after a worldwide pandemic and a new world adjusting to life, my debut novel, The Girl, debuted for sale in North America, Europe, and Australia. It culminated over 10 years of ideas, false starts, rework, sub-par contracts, and edits. The day of the book’s release, I turned my phone off, went to a spa day, and stuffed my face full of churros with chocolate sauce. 

The process of writing the book and getting it to publication was nothing like I had expected it to be. So many writing conferences, classes, and online webinars only speak about how to write the book, edit it, and even pitch it. But I have never encountered anyone discussing what it’s like once you get to the contract and beyond. 

Since I cannot believe that I am now at the stage of publishing my second novel, I wanted to reflect on things I wish I had known or learned when my first novel was published.

Your first publishing contract offer often differs from the offer you end up with. In my dreams, getting a book deal contract in writing cemented that you had made it, a goal achieved. However, I went through three or four offers for my first book to get published before finding a publisher whose contract I felt comfortable working with. I highly encourage any aspiring writer or author to use any writing guild memberships or invest in a legal service for contract reviews, especially if you decide to pitch your work without an agent. Legal reviews can take time, and it’s important to know that contract negotiation can get dicey.Knowing what you’re unwilling to compromise on in your contract is essential. Is there a certain royalty percentage you are looking for? When you pitch your art, you must understand that agents and publishers can categorize the format in which the art is created as a distinct right for sale. Suddenly, it isn’t just a hardback or paperback copy of the novel you must decide if you will let go of. Do you wish the audiobook rights would also be on the block for discussion? What about movies? Television? Graphic novel? While at the beginning of all these discussions, I thought saying yes to everything was the way to go, my peers and fellow Authors Guild members quickly talked me down from saying yes to anything I didn’t fully understand. When an author bargains the rights away, there needs to be an understanding that they may lose more than they gain.That being said, there’s something to be said about the ability to know the difference between the things you can and cannot control and the things that are your strengths and weaknesses. Once my publisher for The Girl accepted the novel, the process felt like being on a movie set, a cycle of hurrying up and then waiting. You are not the only book on the docket, and depending on your release timing, you can find yourself waiting a while for the process to start.A big part of publishing is being able to condense and expand on what your project is about at any time—whether it’s the one-sentence logline or the back of the book description. You will never be in a place where you don’t need to summarize your story. Coming up with ways to condense your art into various word counts is painful and a proper exercise in creativity, but when you get it, you GET it.Some details that you suddenly get hung up on will surprise you. It’s so funny how, at the start of the process, I would have said once I wrote the novel, I wanted to use as many other skilled artists as possible to present my book with its best foot forward. I was lucky to work with a publisher that allowed me to participate in several marketing areas, including the book cover design. While I did not have the final say on the cover, I was surprised at the little details I suddenly obsessed over—the tones of the colors I picked, the mood the font was giving, and even the angle of the character’s face. You only get so many rounds of revisions (if any) for artwork reviews, and there’s the ever-ticking time clock counting down to release. Each step in approvals gatekeepers another portion of the production. Don’t get so caught up in the details that may not matter as much—the point is to get the book to the release date.

Just as Dorothy pulls back the curtain behind the Wizard of Oz, getting through the publishing process for your first novel can feel like a roller coaster of a million emotions. While it sounds trite, for any new author experiencing the journey for the first time, try every second to enjoy the good, bad, and ugly parts of the process. You publish your debut novel once, but with any luck, this is the first of many times through the book launch process. 

Check out Victory Witherkeigh’s The Demon here:

Bookshop | Amazon

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