As the school year draws to a close, I’ve been digging into Book 2 and getting it prepped for a fall release.  My editor sent me her edits and notes a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been going through them and making changes and corrections as needed.  In fact, I finished up just this week and have moved on to formatting.

Formatting has been a bit of a challenge.  I found the font Royal James used, so there’ll be visual consistency in the books, and I’m doing all the little, fiddly things that have to be done to make it look like a real, professional book.  Margins are set, title pages are created, and I’m messing about with the header text and page numbers now.  There are some challenges with getting everything exactly the way I want it, but I’m confident it’ll all be ready in September.

Once the formatting is done, I’ll be in a holding pattern, waiting for my artist to create the cover.  I know he has other jobs ahead of mine, so it’s going to be sometime this summer before he even begins, but once I have the cover in hand the book will basically be ready to go.  Between now and then, there’ll be a short story called “Bad Press” (anyone who got the old Hazzard Pay collection from a few years ago will be familiar with this one, though I’ve added a few new bits).

So, all in all, things are moving along well.  I feel I’ve got a much better handle on the stuff I have to do to self-publish this time around, and I think the results are going to be fantastic.  My editor was tremendously positive about the manuscript, as were my beta readers, so I’m hopeful this one will be a hit.