I got through another 17 pages in my edits today, taking me part of the way into Chapter 2. So far, I’m happy that the how-to section hasn’t really needed any significant edits. So, the step of going through and writing these back into Scrivener shouldn’t take too long.
And that has me thinking ahead to when I tell my mailing list and put the book up for pre-order. I want to start building buzz and get my list interested, so that when it comes time, I can drop it and get some response. But I’m only about a quarter of the way through the first proofread, and I still have to copy in those edits, do a second proofread pass, and then go through the agony of formatting the thing before it’s ready.
Normally, I would just go ahead and set a pre-order date that is far enough out to give me time to take care of all of that with room for flexibility. But on the other hand, this book is going to make a bigger impact if I can get it out by mid April. I haven’t yet reached the point where I’m willing to set my fiction aside to focus entirely on this one to get it out in time. So, right now, it’s a balancing act. Set the pre-order too early and I risk running out of time. Too late, and the book loses relevance.
What I can do, though, is set it late and then release early. Hopefully that shouldn’t bother anyone. If I can get the pre-order set up and start building buzz, I’ll let me readers know if it looks like it will drop early. (Of course, that’s one more thing to do that isn’t writing the book, which is going to slow me down, but it has to be done, anyway).