Join me on my road to publication (part 9)

My multipart series chronicles the ups and downs of an ordinary person striving to becoming a novelist in the real world. The series will span more than five decades.

Apr 30, 2025

If you’ve read parts 1-8, you can skip the intro (though it’s a fascinating intro 😀):
I’m the author of ten published novels, three novellas, and two nonfiction books. Seven of the novels, the three novellas, and one of the nonfiction books were traditionally published. I self-published the remaining three novels and nonfiction book.
This might seem impressive to some, but it goes without saying that I’m no Stephen King, especially when it comes to our respective bank accounts. Despite boasting over 70,000 purchases/downloads of my books, I’ve barely broken into five figures in cash royalties because (admittedly) most of the sales were free or inexpensive ebooks. Regardless, it’s likely there are authors who would trade places with me, which might be viewed as a depressing commentary on how extraordinarily difficult it is for a no-name to hit it big.
Though I’m not the only author on Substack chronicling something like this, my story has unique elements that I believe will be informative and relatable to writers and readers. Over the next several months, I’ll post a bimonthly account of my journey to publication—from the 1970s when I was a young man with big dreams to a recently retired dude who hasn’t given up on those dreams quite yet. Here is part 9.

A book is born—and it’s off to the races

In my previous post, I talked about the intensive editing process I went through with my midsized publisher for book 1 of my six-book epic fantasy. The first book contained a lot of backstory that my editor wanted to nix. Books 2-6 didn’t have as much backstory, so the editing process became simpler. But that doesn’t mean it was easy.

Book 1 debuted in August 2012. Book 6 came out in October 2014, which means it took 26 months to complete the series, an average of about four months per book. That’s damn fast when you consider that the publishing process isn’t only about editing the word docs. There’s cover and back-cover design, interior formatting, hard-copy proofing, and a lot of double-checking, fact-checking, back-checking, and just about every other kind of checking you can think of. My publisher impressed me greatly. I was, after all, only one of many projects on their plate. In my opinion, it was a Herculean feat on their part.

One of the grand cliches of being a published book author is the glorious day when your book arrives in the mail. There really is nothing like opening the box, gently lifting out a book, gazing at it, smelling it, feeling the cover’s matte texture on the pads of your fingers, staring at your name on the cover.

Jim Melvin

Makes you feel … important.

However, as my wife will tell you, I tend toward being a glass-half-empty kind of guy. I spent most of my day-job career as a journalist. Over the course of 30-plus years, I wrote a lot of stories. But admittedly, most of my career wasn’t spent as a reporter but as a designer, editor, and supervisor. So my focus was more on the newspaper as a whole rather than one specific story.

Back then (1978-2015), everybody still got a paper edition tossed onto their driveway each morning. When my paper arrived in the morning I immediately went to the section I designed the previous night before and looked it over very carefully. But it wasn’t about admiring my work. Instead, it was a heart-pounding search for errors. I couldn’t relax and enjoy what I had helped produce until I was certain a word like f*ck wasn’t in the lead headline. 😀

This odd paranoia about hidden errors—refined over decades—has stuck with me in almost every aspect of my life, including my books. Most writers are thrilled, excited, and giggly with anticipation when they first open that box. But I can’t bring myself to enjoy it until I’ve skimmed through one of the books long enough to feel confident it’s okay. Only then can I finally relax and take pleasure.

(Is anyone else like this? Or is it just me?)

But I digress. In the end, each book turned out just fine, and having all six standing side by side on my bookshelf finally made me excited and giggly like it would any normal person.

No matter what happened after that, I felt like I could look at myself in the mirror and know I had accomplished the most important part of my dream. The books stood as tangible evidence that I was now an OFFICIAL NOVELIST!

The question then became … what now?

Up next: Let’s talk about promotions, sales, and reviews.