Year in Review: Part Two, Novel is Published

Let us continue a review of the birth of my novel. As we left off, I had just signed with Safkhet Publishing at the end of 2013.


So now came the beginning of 2014 a New Year filled with some hope and prospects of getting my novel published.

As an author, you have created something, in some sense; it is an intellectual child, a manufacture of your own mind. Many authors have a sense of ownership and do not take criticism very well; they consider it an attack to one of their children.

For me, my experience as a pro-wrestler helped me accept being critiqued and accept recommendations from my publisher. As a wrestler, you have a promoter instead of a publisher. The promoter usually owns the wrestling federation you are involved with, and it is his job to get fans to see the matches. The promoter will inform you what you will do for that match you are to appear in.

Sometimes, a promoter is a local person who is just there to promote himself and his friends. This is not a good situation to be in as a wrestler. You will get booked for a couple matches, just to lose to his inner circle of friends; most of whom have little or no wrestling talent.

Other times, you meet a promoter who is trying to build up a wrestling federation. They know that by improving wrestlers, they will also increase their fan base. These promoters will evaluate every single wrestler, make suggestions and recommendations. Even with this type of promoter, at the end you as a wrestler are hired to do what they want.

One thing that I learned as a wrestler and something that authors should learn is that you are in control of your creation, and you do not need to compromise. This being said, the publisher does not need to compromise either; you can stand your ground, but they are not required to publish your book.

I went viewed my publisher the same as, I did with a promoter. He owned the publishing company, and he had an interest to make sure my book sold. The first suggestion he made was to re-name my novel. The title I first had given the book was “Mystic Knights of the Dead Killers”, this was the name of the order of knights in the story. The publisher first suggested, “Trials of the Mystic Knights”, after I thought about it being a series, I had concluded this would be better for the name of the last book in the series. After some discussion, we came up with the current title, "Legend of the Mystic Knights".

The publisher then assigned me an editor. I began to work with her in the review of my novel. For the most part, I agreed to the recommendations she made. I finished the editing, and resubmitted the final copy to the publisher.

There were a couple of issues I had during my process; one was the cover of my novel. In the contract I signed, it states the publisher will provide several examples for me to choose from. If you notice from the book cover, I was given a cover which consists of a photo with the title of the book. I did not like this cover, so I objected. My objection was this did not look like a book cover, but a photo. The other covers provided by my publisher were of the same person in different poses or with different medieval equipotent of costumes. I had only one option, to choose the least objectionable cover for my novel.

There was another major issue, which occurred in late June 2014. Everyone who had signed with the publisher received an important email. We were informed that the company would be dissolved and that they (the publishers) would create a new company.

This new company would be different from the old one. When I signed my previous contract, it stated my novel first would be an e-book, later if it met the criteria in sales; it would, then become a paperback version. The new publisher would only be now dealing in e-books. There were other changes, but this was the biggest one for the author’s.

Many authors decided to leave the “new” company, others decided to stay and give them a try. Considering that it took me so long to find a publisher to print my novel, I was not going to restart from scratch, also the point that the publisher were honest with what was going to occur, I decided to stay with Safkhet Publishing.

My novel was released as an e-book n August 2014. Several press releases were done and I had initial success in sales. I had now been almost six months since the novel has been published, and our story moves on to the next stage.

Next Time: Some Promoting