Publishing with Morgan James, Part 3

It's been a while since I updated you on my experience publishing with Morgan James, and so much has happened! I feel bad because I'm probably going to miss some things now since I've forgotten stuff!

Close to Christmas, so about three months after I accepted the offer from MJ, I had a big call with everyone who would be on my team. I brought along (it was just on the phone, but you know what I mean) my PA, Lorie, and my mentor, Jana. On their side, I think it was Jim Hancock (brother of the owner, specializing in fiction publishing), the proofreader that MJ provides, and an author liason, Gayle, who would be my point person going forward.

Together, we made plans for when the manuscript would be due, and when proofreading and cover design would happen. I felt like I had a voice on everything, so it was a good experience.

You have to hire your own editor to give your book that last push. I had already had my book edited, but I had a new editor who specializes in science fiction have a look at it and, much to my chagrin, she had a lot of problems with it. O_o The thing is, she was totally right.

So I worked like a maniac on my books, alongside my editor and my PA who was doing a last "shiny" pass. We were a tad late on our deadline, but Gayle, was approved the delay.

Meanwhile, work on the cover design began right when they said it would—the start of January. Prior to our first cover design chat, I was asked to provide comp titles, including covers I liked the look of, and give reasons why I liked it, etc.

The part of the process I didn't like, was that I couldn't speak to the designer myself, but everything had to be relayed through Gayle. Since I struggled to get the look and feel I needed out of the design, this became a bit of a pinch point. Eventually we all settled on a cover that was "fine" but didn't resonate with me at all. But I'll admit, I didn't know how to change it, I was tired and stressed (editing, when I should have been doing other stuff, plus, we lost one of our precious dogs in early January and I had a hard time. And we got a new puppy, so there was that, too! Yikes!) and I was just really struggling passing notes through Gayle. There were problems with verbiage and semantics and just all the problems.

This is the cover we decided on, but not the final cover—which I'll tell you about another time! There are things I really like about this cover, but I felt it read a little young, didn't sit well beside my other books, and didn't quite have the same vibe as my competitors.

Stay tuned for Part 4 in which I'll discuss what happened with the cover, and other nifty details!

If you have any questions about my experience, please ask! When I was considering working with Morgan James, I found a lot of negative stuff on the web, which made the decisions harder than it had to be.