Kara: 0:32

So what happened at the writers conference was that there was an agent's panel where you could submit your first page and they would critique it. And I get to the thing and they're critiquing other people's first pages and they spend like five minutes on them and they get to mine and it sort of starts out like everybody else's. And it sort of starts out like everybody else's, but then very quickly one of the agents says to the moderator this is a good place to stop and talk about how not to start a book. And it was so awful. And so I sat there for 17 minutes. They had been five minutes on everybody else but they really picked apart the first page that I had sent in and why it was just bad and not the way to start a book. And that was really really hard. Yeah, and it affected me for several months. It really, like took away my confidence. Should I still be writing? Is this worth it? Like, if this is what it's going to be like, do I want to?

Kara: 1:39

do this yeah.

Savannah: 1:43

Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast. My name is Savannah Gilbo and I'm here to help you write a story that works. I want to prove to you that writing a novel doesn't have to be overwhelming, so each week, I'll bring you a brand new episode with simple, actionable and step-by-step strategies that you can implement in your writing right away. So, whether you're brand new to writing or more of a seasoned author looking to improve your craft, this podcast is for you. So pick up a pen and let's get started. In today's episode, I'm chatting with Kara Kentley, one of my Notes to Novel Students and the author of Another Summer. You're going to hear us talk about how she transformed her 95,000-word draft with two timelines, a sagging middle and missing romance beats, into her published debut novel, another Summer, a book that, at the time of this recording, has been selling copies every single day. You'll hear us talk about what it was like to delete an entire timeline from her draft and why she made this decision in the first place. She's going to share why learning the romance genre beats felt like a relief instead of a restriction. And finally, you'll hear what happened when she launched her book with zero reviews and no marketing plan. Spoiler alert she still hit number one in her category, which is pretty dang cool. So if you've ever felt lost in your manuscript or wondered why your story loses steam halfway through, this conversation is going to show you how structure can actually set your creativity free, and Kara's story from a 95,000 word first draft that didn't work to a published novel that sells copies every single day is hopefully going to really inspire you. Now, real quick, before we dive in, I want to read you the back cover copy of Kara's book, just so you have a little context for our conversation. So here's what it says.

Savannah: 3:23

Miles and Avery seemed like the perfect couple when they met a decade ago while working at a lakeside resort in Maine. For one magical summer, they were like blueberry pancakes and maple syrup. But at summer's end, things turned sticky. When Miles abruptly ended things. They haven't spoken since. When the resort's owner suffers a family emergency, both Avery and Miles return to the lake to help open the resort for summer.

Savannah: 3:46

After selling her stationary business and leaving a cheating fiancé, avery is all about playing it safe and she isn't interested in giving Miles and his big-dock energy another chance. As long as she keeps him at a canoe paddle's distance. They won't have to dredge up their past before she starts her MBA. In the fall. Miles is now a tech entrepreneur and semi-famous serial dater living in New York. Avery's the only woman who ever understood him and he's determined to make up for past hurts. If he can remind her of everything they had that summer and prove his commitment, he might get another chance.

Savannah: 4:19

Despite a decade of silence that stings, avery can't deny Miles remains the same intelligent, kind-hearted soul who once showed her the stars. It'll take another summer to figure out if they're friends, lovers, enemies or ghosted exes. Can they put aside their heartbreak and help the people they love without their history floating to the surface? Alright, and then real quick. One last thing before we jump in my Notes to Novel course is opening for enrollment very soon. If you're ready to finally finish your novel with a proven step-by-step system, make sure you're on the waitlist at savannahgilbocom forward slash waitlist. Waitlist members get exclusive early bird bonuses, first access to enroll and a few more surprise bonuses. I'm keeping secret for now. One more time that's savannagilbocom forward slash waitlist to be the first to know when enrollment opens for my Notes to Novel course. All right, so without further ado, let's dive right into my conversation with Kara Kentley.

Kara: 5:14

I had always kind of wondered, probably since about my 20s, if I could write a book. Was that something I could do? And so one day I just decided that I would sit down and try and see what happened. And this version of Another Summer is about 10 versions later of that first book that I wrote. And on release day my release day was April 29th I kept saying to my husband over and over I always wondered if I could do this. I can't believe I did it.

Savannah: 5:46

Yeah, so funny Dreams turned into reality. I love it.

Kara: 5:50

Yeah, yeah, and in my other non-writing life I do a lot of work with nonprofits. My sort of, you know, whatever career or whatever you want to call it has been with nonprofits, specifically marketing nonprofits. Now I work with a local foundation that gives grants to local nonprofits and it's really fun because I thought I knew all the nonprofits in my community. I did not, and there are a lot of amazing, amazing people out there doing wonderful work for people who really need it.

Savannah: 6:27

So that's awesome, what a rewarding career. And now you tag on author to that resume, which is so fun. Yeah, take me back to like you said you thought about, maybe I could be a writer. And then you're like someday I sat down and just decided to start. Where did this idea for another summer come from?

Kara: 6:44

So I have had, since I was a kid, terrible insomnia, and ever since I was young I mean probably from middle school on I realized that if I made up stories in my head, I fell asleep faster.

Savannah: 6:59

Oh, interesting.

Kara: 7:00

And I would make up stories in my head and then sometimes I the next night I'd be like man. That story last night was really good. I'm just going to go back to that story and continue it. And this particular story Another Summer had been in my head for, I'd say, a good four or five months before I sat down to write it, and my first draft was very linear, but a lot of it was already in my head, so I actually wrote it fairly quickly. I think I wrote like 95,000 words in about four or five weeks. Wow, which was really fast because I already knew where the story was going, and all that. Then, after I was done, my husband printed it off at his office, brought it home and he read it and I read it and he said I think you should keep going. And at that point I realized I didn't really know anything about writing a novel. I had just written this story that was in my head and perhaps I should educate myself a little on how to write a book 2022, if you can believe it.

Savannah: 8:18

And so it sounds like you were kind of in this realm of okay, I did something, I wrote a draft and now I don't know what I don't know. So I need to get some help. And we did a manuscript evaluation together. So I read it and we kind of came together to discuss like here's what you have, here's what you want it to be. And you know, fast forward all these years. Later. Now you have a book, but the original version had two timelines basically. So what was that like when A I told you I don't know if this is going to work, and then, basically, we have to kind of restructure this whole thing.

Kara: 8:46

Yeah, first of all, there was also a ton of head hopping.

Kara: 8:49

You're, like that was only just one problem you very kindly did not mention, but I could feel that it was very linear. I also suffered from a saggy middle and my daughter was reading that draft those first couple drafts I had and she kept saying like I love this book up to the halfway point and then it just loses steam for me and I kept like switching things out and I couldn't get that right. And so, yes, so then I came to you, I took your notes to novel class, which was great. That's how we met, and in there I learned about genre expectations, which I had not met, all of the romance expectations and also, just so, structure of a story. And I realized that the structure of this story was not working. So when I came to you I knew it wasn't working. It wasn't like I was like, oh, look at this, it's amazing. I was really like I need help.

Savannah: 9:50

Is where I was.

Kara: 9:51

And so I think the first thing you told me was you've got two timelines here and you either need to pick one. You really need to pick one and stick most of the book in that timeline. And that's when I decided to put it in the present day and have flashbacks to the past.

Savannah: 10:10

Yeah, and so just to catch listeners up, let's explain what the two timelines are. So you had one that was like 10 years prior in the summer, and then you had a current day, present day, summer, with the same two characters. And so I think what we identified was, like you said, it was very linear, so it was 10 years ago, all the way up until today, with kind of a gap in the middle of transitioning. Those 10 years, right, right, and that's where your daughter kept getting stuck too, is in that transition.

Kara: 10:37

Yeah, and she just kept getting stuck too on what I was doing in the present day. Yeah, Because I really couldn't figure out, like how many part of the romance genre is you have to have a happily ever after? And I couldn't figure out, like how do I get them in the same place so they can have a happily ever after? And one of the things she said to me she was in film school or had just graduated. She said they always told us in film school, if you create a world and you don't know what to do with your characters, put them back in the world. And that was great advice, because when I started working with you I was like, okay, let's put them back in the resort where they met. So they had had a terrible breakup 10 years ago. How do we get them back in this resort? And all these memories come back up.

Savannah: 11:23

Yeah, it might surprise listeners to know that we actually stuck with the current timeline or the present timeline. So almost everything that your daughter really liked we didn't necessarily get rid of, we just wove it into the story present. But do you remember what that was like emotionally or like mentally to do that that really liked we didn't necessarily get rid of, we just wove it into the story present. But do you remember what that was like emotionally or like mentally to do that? That's a big ask.

Kara: 11:42

Yeah, well, it is a big ask. And so much of it was cut. Yeah, so much of the first summer that they have together was cut. And they always say like, kill your darlings or whatever. That was yours, kill your darlings or whatever. And that was a lot of that was mine and some of that I was still killing my darlings up until almost the final draft. Yes, yeah, it was painful, but at the same time I don't regret any of it, as I think, writing that first summer out, I had a really good sense of who these two people were Totally and why the past wounded them and all of that. So, summer out I had a really good sense of who these two people were and why the past wounded them and all of that. So it wasn't useless to write it all out like that. It was actually very helpful.

Savannah: 12:27

So yeah, One of the things we had talked about too was you could technically do two timelines where they both unfold at the same time, and for whatever reason we decided not to do that back in the day and why we decided to stick with one, I think was because we said we want readers to kind of dip into their current summer and say, well, what happened between them? Are they going to recover from this? How are they going to deal with things in this summer? Right?

Kara: 12:52

Yes, that was a big factor. The second factor was, as I mentioned, I've had all the head hopping and we needed to decide. Somebody's point of view needs to happen here. How are we going to deal with that? And it was pretty clear to me. That actually was a really easy answer for me because I felt like it needed to be dual point of view. Yeah, I felt like we needed Avery's perspective and my perspective, especially when it came to what had happened between them and what had happened to them since.

Kara: 13:23

And then the other piece of that became okay. If we have dual timelines and two points of view, wow, this is going to get confusing.

Savannah: 13:33

Yeah, and imagine then having the past also. That's right. Yes, something you just said to reminded me. You said we had to do the two point of views because each of them kind of had a different perspective on that summer. Like, yeah, we know that this bad thing happened, they broke up, they were both very hurt, but they both had different reasons of why that thing happened and takeaways from that thing happening. So it was really fun and I think this is a great way for writers to think about their own stories is like, what is that reason for having two points of view and this was a great reason for you is like there were different realities at that point and we're coming into this summer with different perspectives.

Kara: 14:10

Yeah, and I felt like we really needed Miles's point of view, since it's a romance. If we were going to do single point of view, it would have made sense just to have that would have been just Avery. But I felt like we needed Miles point of view because Miles has really gone through some hard stuff, yeah, and we needed his realization of how that had affected him and how it affected his ability to fall in love with someone, and that I thought was going to be really hard to do from her perspective. Totally.

Savannah: 14:45

Yeah, because it would have changed the reader's experience right. Having Miles's perspective, we understand him more than Avery does, so we can kind of sit there and say, okay, we're going to figure this out. Hang in there, avery, where if we just had Avery's perspective, we might not have liked Miles too much right away.

Kara: 15:05

Yes, that's exactly right. In the beginning of the book there are a lot of reasons not to like Miles. Until you kind of figure out, like you know, what's going on, he seems a little full of himself and all of that, and I felt like you needed his perspective on just how badly he wants this and also how hard he's trying and it might not be coming out right, you know. Yeah, yeah, I think if it had been in a single point of view, it would have been really also hard to get Avery over the hump. That's true. Should I take this guy back?

Savannah: 15:39

Yeah, but yeah, yeah. So it just would have created a different reading experience, which is exactly the right way to think about making these kinds of decisions. But it's funny because you mentioned two things I wanted to dig into. One is the genre expectations. So you kind of you knew what a romance was, but you said you needed to learn more about how to structure it, what those expectations were, but you said you needed to learn more about how to structure it, what those expectations were, and how to make the missing key scenes or conventions fit into your story. So how did learning about that stuff change? How?

Kara: 16:06

you approached the writing. Yeah well, I'm sort of an organized person anyways and I really like order. So for me it was kind of a little bit of a relief to know like I need to have these particular scenes in this book and they're going to happen, and they pretty much always happen in order, and so I've already got here's my roadmap, now we'll figure out how to get there. So that was actually really a nice realization. And then it was funny because I read a lot of romance and I had never really picked up on this.

Savannah: 16:41

Yeah, and now you do all the time and now I pick up on it all the time. Yeah, that's so funny. And so the other thing you mentioned too was about characters, because you had that original timeline already written. You said you knew your characters really well and, like I agree with you, you did, but we had to do a lot of character work. Still, when it came to the present timeline, do you remember like walking through all their arcs and how, even up until the very last draft, we were like can we sharpen this, can we make this better?

Kara: 17:07

Yeah, Talk about that a little bit. Yeah, so I definitely had. Well, for one thing, I had a much better handle on Miles than I did on Avery when it came to their characters and how they would handle things and you know, sort of I just had a better handle on on him than I did on her. So there was a lot more work that had to be done on her. And then, yeah, you know I think you would probably agree with this I tended to go off on tangents that might not have been in keeping with their characters, which is why I really appreciated working with you, because you would sometimes say, hey, why is this happening? I don't think he would do this here. Or, yes, exactly why is this happening? Or is this, think he would do this here? Or yes, exactly why is this happening? Or is this necessary? And a lot of times the answer was no. This is not necessarily. It was just fun to write.

Savannah: 17:58

Yeah, and sometimes there were things that you had to try on. I remember for Avery she was a little bit like I have to have my list, I have to be very organized, be very structured, and so we had to try on. What does that feel like? And then some things were congruent with who she was and some things weren't. So it was kind of like filtering things through a, you know, very, very clear lens that you knew who they were. But we had to try on the different hats.

Kara: 18:21

Yeah, one thing I remember specifically in regards to that with Avery was in the beginning I had her be a little bit of a babbler when she saw him, because when she got nervous she just kept talking and in the end that didn't really work well. It didn't do anything for her character. So, yeah, she ended up being a little more sure of herself. Because that's what happened with the babbling was she just sounded all over the place, right. So we sort of took that out and made her a little more, a little more sure of herself, and that was good. I bought this book and it has. It's a very dated book because it's gender specific and whatnot, but it laid out a good foundation for here's the sorts of things like we I think we just Miles was the professor and here's the kind of things he would do. Here's how he would react to things. This book was sort of helpful in that way of being like oh okay, that is. You know, that is something Miles would do or it's not so that that was helpful too.

Kara: 19:28

Just you know, narrowed the playing field a little not, yeah, that that was helpful to just, you know, narrowed the playing field a little, yeah, and I think everybody has their craft books that, like, for whatever reason, resonate with them and I found that one really helpful.

Savannah: 19:40

Yeah, and I'll link to that so for anyone listening. It's called the Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes and Heroines, the 16 Master Archetypes, so I will link to that in the show notes. And then the other thing I wanted to ask you, kara, because you were saying Miles came easier to you.

Kara: 19:56

Which character did you relate to the most? I probably related to Avery more, yeah, which may have been why I had trouble, you know, because it was like, yeah, like this would make me mad and this would make me mad, yeah, I just have a big list.

Savannah: 20:09

Yeah, and that's exactly why I asked you because I find this to be true for anyone listening who might be struggling with this as well that the more similar we are to our protagonists, the harder times. Sometimes we have seen them objectively or we just put too much of our own selves in there, like this is something I'm very guilty of as well, but I have definitely found it's a pattern the more similar you are, the harder of a time you're going to have, which makes no sense, right?

Kara: 20:34

Yeah, it doesn't, because you think like, oh, I should be able to see into everything. But the truth is that real people are much more complex than fictional people.

Savannah: 20:43

You can't put all of it in there? Yeah, definitely can't. So, speaking of conferences, one of the other things I was going to ask you is that you're I would say you're a sensitive person, which I think is one of the greatest things about you, but sometimes sensitivity makes it hard to get feedback and change things when you're like I put so much effort into this and it didn't work out. So there were would we say there was a few emotional ups and downs during this process.

Kara: 21:08

Oh yeah, and one the big one happened at a writer's conference. So what happened at the writer's conference was that there was an agent's panel where you could submit your first page and they would critique it. And I get to the thing and they're critiquing other people's first pages and they spend like five minutes on them and they get to mine and it sort of starts out like everybody else's. But then very quickly one of the agents says to the moderator this is a good place to stop and talk about how not to start a book.

Savannah: 21:46

And first nightmare activated.

Kara: 21:48

It was so awful and so I sat there for 17 minutes. They had been five minutes on everybody else, but once I saw my thing on the screen, I started a voice memo, you know. So they really picked apart the first page that I had sent in and why it was just bad and not the way to start a book and that was really, really hard. It was really hard, yeah, and it really Threw you for a loop. It did. It affected me for several months. It really, like, took away my confidence. Should I still be writing? Is this worth it? Like, if this is what it's going to be like, do I want?

Savannah: 22:31

to do this.

Kara: 22:32

Yeah, and I think slowly I came to realize that while it was harsh, they were correct.

Kara: 22:38

The book did not begin in the right place and I think in the end we decided it really should start with what was at the time chapter four or five. Yeah, you know that there was a whole bunch of junk in the beginning and also that there was a little bit of a change there, because it used to be that romances expected you to introduce us to the female character or one character and then introduce us to the second character in their own worlds, and that that would be the first couple of chapters, then bring them together. That has really changed Now. The advice that they gave me ultimately was that I needed to drop both these characters right in the meet cute, and now that's been a bit of a change over the last few years. With romance you see a lot more meet coots happening right away. So that's kind of when what was going on there and yeah, so we ended up scrapping other chapters as well because they didn't sort of really did drop them right in the action.

Savannah: 23:46

Yeah, and I think some of the things, too, you did well during that time period is like you took the break when you needed it. There were days where you were not loving anything and you were like I don't want to keep going, and then there were other days where it's like maybe I'll just go slow and you took the time to figure out what do I really want to do? And was a point where I had kind of dealt with the feedback.

Kara: 24:15

And well, one of the things that we did was, pretty soon after that writing conference, I sent the manuscript to beta readers and the beta readers then had it for six weeks, right, yeah, so I had six weeks of don't touch this manuscript because the beta readers are going to also tell me stuff to change. Yeah, and the beta reading process ended up being a great thing for me because the beta readers generally liked the book, you know, and they did have some suggestions. They told me what was working and what wasn't working, and I really needed to know what was working or that there was something working. So that was super helpful. And after the beta reader feedback came back, then I was like, okay, now I'm ready to sit down and use this feedback and we'll just not worry about what the agent said for now. And we left the beginning of the book the way it was and went back to it later.

Savannah: 25:16

Yes, you know there's a few important things that you just mentioned. One of them is, like we learned in hindsight what kind of feedback you need to be the most productive, and I think this is something a lot of writers don't think about, where they just think I'm going to take whatever comes my way and the agents and whoever they must know best. Right, but a lot of us need that positive feedback to know what's working, in addition to the constructive feedback.

Kara: 25:38

Yeah, I'm big on when I give feedback to other writers, saying you know what you call the compliment sandwich, where I start with here's what I loved, here's what I think needs work, and then I end with here's what you do really well, right, I have a sense of the emotion of these characters or whatever it is, because, like I said, if you get it back and it's all red lines or whatever, so to speak, discouraging, it's really discouraging and it's also then on you to weed out like, okay, so what did work? Right. But I was lucky. I had really great beta readers who were like I love this, yeah, I'm not wild about this. Yeah, right, this feels dated or whatever you know. And so I was like, okay, I don't have to worry about these parts that they liked. What I have to worry about are these parts that you know, and there are trends with beta readers. I think you should get more than one.

Savannah: 26:38

There were some things that every single one of them flagged and then I was like, okay, that's a problem, yeah, and things that every single one of them loved, like Paulson.

Kara: 26:42

Yeah, no one of them didn't like Paulson, but it wasn't that she didn't like him, she just said I'd get rid of him Like he's, only in a couple scenes. Let's get rid of him Like Elaine. Yeah, exactly, so that, and like you said, that helped me know when I went to do hire a line editor and a proofreader to say I like to know what's working and what's not working.

Savannah: 27:06

Yeah, and so let's talk about that in a second. Because somewhere between the moment of going to that conference and getting the feedback, and getting the beta reader feedback and actually really finishing the book, you decided that you were not going to pursue traditional publishing, which was your original goal. So how did that change come about?

Kara: 27:23

Yeah. So I mean, I think originally I just was like I'm going to, you know, query agents and whatever, because that's what you do. Yeah, like I, my brother, self-published a book, but I didn't really know that much about it, or you know. So what happened was I was kind of watching a bunch of things from the sidelines. I was in a group of people for beta. My beta readers were all trying to get agents, yeah, and they were posting all their rejections on this Discord. We were on and I was like, wow, man, this is harsh. I'm not sure I'm cut out for day in and day out of getting rejections, because that is part of querying. You know, not everyone is going to love your book. The first agent who reads it probably isn't going to pick it up, those kind of things, and I wasn't sure I was cut out for that.

Savannah: 28:22

And then I wanted to deal with it, Right Cause at some point you're like I just don't know if this is how I want to spend my time.

Kara: 28:25

Yes, it's a lot of time because you'll probably spend a year, maybe 18 months, querying agents. Then the agent's going to have you edit the book, you know, to where they feel like they can put it on sub. Now you're on sub and you're on sub for a year maybe, and if a publisher picks up your book today, it's not coming out for another two years and I was like I don't want to wait that long, that's a long time. I'm a little bit impatient and I was like that's a long time. What ultimately happened was we finished the manuscript for another summer. I finished it in September, I think, or September of last year.

Kara: 29:03

The writing conference same one with the agents. I went back to it in October. I pitched the book to an agent there. But this writing conference has hour-long classes and there are four classes during each hour that you can pick from. So I only went to publishing classes. I went to querying classes, agent classes. I went to one with an editor who picks up things from submissions. She worked, I think, for Berkeley.

Kara: 29:31

I also went to some self-publishing classes to figure out how they did their thing. I went to a marketing class where they had a panel of self-published authors and published authors, and was shocked to learn how little support these published authors were getting for marketing and the basic. Over the course of the weekend, I just came to the realization that the self-publishing people seemed to be having a lot of fun. Yes, they were working hard, but they were in control of all of that and I learned a lot from them. Like, you need to have a good cover, you need to make this book look professional.

Kara: 30:12

And that's when I came back from that and said you know, I think I'm going to self-publish this, because one of the things I think you really have to think about as a writer is what is your goal here? Because everybody's goal is not I'm going to have an agent and I'm going to be a bestseller. Some people are writing a book because they want their friends to read it, or they want just their family to read it. Right, I mean, they just want to write a book because they want their friends to read it, or they want just their family to read it. Right, I mean, they just want to write a book. Or they just want to write a book and they don't care whether it gets out there. My goal, I would say, was I want to publish this book. I think it would be fun if someone I don't know read my book.

Kara: 30:50

Yeah, that's kind of where I was. Yeah, and so I wasn't. I had never thought, oh, I'm going to be on the bestseller list and I'll have a book tour and all this. I just didn't. That wasn't really my goal. So my goal could be accomplished by self-publishing. Yeah, and so I was like, okay, I'm going to self-publish. I would say, the big thing for me was that marketing seminar, because I was like, boy, if I'm going to have to market my own book, I think I want it to be mine. Yeah, what's?

Savannah: 31:22

the point then right.

Kara: 31:23

Yeah, there's a myth out there that, like, the publisher is going to do all the marketing for you and you're just going to show up at events and sign books, and that you know it does sound glamorous, but a lot of traditionally published authors work very hard to market their books, and so do self-published authors, and I thought, you know what, if I'm going to have to do it, anyways, I'll be self-published.

Savannah: 31:48

Yeah, I'll control it. It'll be more fun for me More freedom.

Kara: 31:52

And so from there I read there's an article out there I think it was on Medium, by Travis Baldry, who wrote Legends and Lattes, and he was very open about how he self published that book. And again, I didn't think I was going to have the. You know, I didn't think I was. I think he in the end got picked up by an agent, but I didn't think that was going to happen to me. But I really appreciated how transparent he was about the process and he really broke it down well for me and step by step, and so I kind of took a look at that, read it and said, okay, now I have, I have a list of how to do this and I'll just start.

Savannah: 32:34

Yeah, and we will link to that in the show notes for anyone who's curious.

Kara: 32:37

Yeah. So you know his big thing was the cover. He was really into covers. So then I said, okay, I got to get a good cover.

Savannah: 32:47

So around that time you were looking at cover designers, you also. This is when you linked up with your line editor, your copy editor. Yes, so talk through, because you said earlier that line editing was pretty intense and it was for multiple reasons. I remember it was like during the holiday window. Yes, it was just a lot of hard work. That's a totally different brain than your creative brain. Yes, talk through what that was like.

Kara: 33:09

So I had hired the line editor already when I think my book was with the line editor the month of October, yeah, and they returned it to me on November 1st. They said it would be great if you I was also using the same group, two Birds or I was using them for my proofreading as well. Someone else from them was going to proofread it. But they said it would be great if you could return this book to us on December 1st. And I don't work very fast. So I knew a month wasn't enough time for me, even in a downtime, right. But it's the holidays and I got people coming for Thanksgiving and I knew that wasn't going to work. So I said how about I give it to you in early January, because I need more time? Even with that, it was a crunch.

Savannah: 34:01

Yeah, I was really why like what were like the. If we had to pick a few takeaways from your line editing, what were some things that you're like I now I'm never going to do that again because I know better after all these revisions.

Kara: 34:13

Repeated words was really the big part of it. That just really. It was like, oh my God, these repeated words are everywhere and it's funny how you just have words you go to yeah, you can try all you want not to repeat words as an author. You're gonna repeat words, yeah, and that's their job to catch them. So I went through the manuscript Pretty much in November. They had made notes like this sentence isn't clear, did you mean this or did you mean this? So a lot of it was clearing things up in clarity or also clunkiness. So there were sometimes where the sentence made more sense if I just shortened it a little. So that part I got through.

Kara: 34:58

Even that was kind of hard because, again, like I said, I do well when there's positive feedback, but that's not their job. Their job is to say like, hey, this isn't working or I don't understand what she meant here. I was lucky. They did point out a couple inconsistencies, but I didn't have anything big. So I finished going through all of that. Then I said, okay, I'm going to tackle these repeated words and I'll do. I'll just, you know, sit down and do seven or eight repeated words a day. And then that went much slower because, like you said, when you have to reorder a sentence, it takes some time.

Savannah: 35:35

Yeah, it's kind of like a you're knocking over a domino and then the whole thing starts falling apart and you're like wait a minute, yeah. So then you got through that and that I know that was a slog. And then you know fast forward, you've got your cover, you found a great cover designer, and then come April you're published.

Kara: 35:51

Yeah, so well, I had a proofread in there, I had a great cover designer and my cover is gorgeous and that was a really fun process. The cover design was fascinating yeah, the whole process. And then, yes, and then I published it.

Savannah: 36:08

So that was exciting and so that was in late April and I always like to ask like, what was that publishing week like? Was it different than you thought? Was it crazy? Tell us about it.

Kara: 36:20

Yes, it was different than I thought, because I had a family member have an emergency in February. That was a long term care issue. I had an injury to my shoulders, and so I just wasn't able to do things like put together a street team. I had pre-orders up but like I wasn't promoting it, I just didn't. There were too many other things going on in my personal life for me to devote much time to the fact that this book was coming out.

Savannah: 36:52

Yeah, which before we started recording you said actually some good things have happened since then, even though your plans didn't all the way come to fruition.

Kara: 36:59

Yeah. And so what happened in the course of that was I was feeling like, oh, I'm just doing this all wrong. I don't have a street team, I haven't sent out ARCs, I didn't have time to do any of that, yeah. Then one day I was on threads and I saw someone responded to this thread and said debuts are for finding your readers. Book tours come later. And that struck me. I was like, okay, I'm going to be okay, because my goal is to find my readers Exactly, and that can happen anytime. That's just what I told myself calm down, that can happen anytime. So my book got released without much fanfare. It was the greatest day ever.

Savannah: 37:41

Well, okay, let's back up though, because you said daughters read it, friends read it, right, so there was fanfare, but it was like personal fanfare.

Kara: 37:50

Yeah, but the day the book came out, there were no reviews of it. I wasn't that focused on how many copies that it sold or whatever. And people kept texting me and saying congratulations and friends called me to say they couldn't believe I'd done it and they'd ordered their copy and my daughter, her friends, all had ordered it and they were all reading it. They were reading it during the day I mean, I don't know if they were reading it at work or what, but they were reading it during the day.

Kara: 38:20

And I was getting these live texts of like, oh my gosh, like I cannot believe this happened, you know, or whatever. And I was like, wow, it's like out there and people are reading it and they're like having fun reading it and they're excited about it. And so it just felt great. Yeah, what a surprise. Huh, yeah, just felt great, like I didn't feel any pressure and I thought you know what? There'll be time when I can market this later. I'm just going to soak this in, yeah, you know. Then I kept saying to my husband I can't believe I did this.

Savannah: 38:51

Yeah, this yeah. And especially, you know you got so clear on your goals and you're like I just want someone to read it. That's not me, or you know a close relative and it's happening. I mean, it's happening now and I think that's so cool.

Kara: 39:04

Yeah, so, and I put it out there and I you know no-transcript, that's what I'm saying there were silver linings to like this delay, because it had started getting noticed and, like I said, like this bookstore, I took out a couple Instagram ads and it's just slowly been gaining momentum and I've been really thrilled. I mean, I didn't expect this, but I'm selling books every day.

Savannah: 40:21

That's great, and it was just included in a roundup you were telling me.

Kara: 40:25

Yes, I got an email this morning from IngramSpark that they have a bookshoporg page and they did a special beach read section and they put about 25 books on there, I think, and they picked mine. Yeah, that's so cool.

Kara: 40:42

And so see, I think some of that might not have happened had I not had all those sales. And one of the things that goes along with this is they've also said they've put it in a special catalog type thing that they send out to independent bookstores. So, and I've been working on getting it in independent bookstores. Some have carried it and some haven't gotten back to me, but I've been working on that. And then I've been doing for marketing. I've been doing some ads and you know just kind of I've been doing some ads and you know just kind of seeing what works, I've been testing a lot of stuff, you know. So I sort of do a test of something one week, see what that does. And I go on threads a lot because there are a lot of people talking about what works for them marketing wise, yeah, and so I love that you're not putting a lot of pressure on it.

Savannah: 41:32

You're just kind of saying my life is a little hectic right now and I'm doing my best, and look what's coming out of it Still amazing things.

Kara: 41:38

Yeah, no, I feel really fortunate and really I went away for a week to Maine to photograph birds. I went to a bird photography camp, which I know sounds nuts but it was super cool. But I was on an island and I didn't do any marketing the entire seven days I was on this island and when I got off the island I've been selling books every day.

Savannah: 42:02

Oh my gosh, what a feeling.

Kara: 42:03

You know. So that's I, and I really am so grateful for my readers because I've discovered readers that you know I don't know these people and they're out there promoting my book, they're reading my book, they're telling their friends about my book or posting about it on social media, and that's you know. That's special, that's just been really special and really exciting.

Savannah: 42:28

Yeah, how cool. Well, what a journey all the way from. If we think about when we met, from July 2022 to April, what was it? 29, 2025. I mean a long journey and a lot of work. There was a lot of work all those years. If you were kind of like to look back over what was that? Three, three-ish years. What was, like, the most important lesson that you learned? Either about writing a book, bringing a book to life, or about yourself as a writer.

Kara: 42:54

Well, I would say okay, there's one thing. I mentioned Allie Carter earlier and I follow her on threads and I learned this lesson late, but it applies to so many things in life anyways. So a while back there was a conversation about what they called moving the needle in publishing, in other words, marketing your book and getting it out there, and the conversation really was about how authors from marginalized communities have a harder time with that, and one of the things that she said in a thread that I thought was such great advice for anybody. She said when someone tells you they've moved the needle I'm paraphrasing here but when someone tells you they've moved the needle, your question shouldn't be how your question should be do we have the same needle? Interesting, and that is such a valuable thing in publishing because I think you're gonna meet all kinds of people. Like I was talking about goals earlier, their goal might not be the same as yours.

Kara: 44:03

On to that for yourself and saying what about this is going to mean the most to me and what about what I'm doing is important to me, is really important as you go through this, because everybody's not going to be hoping for the same thing you're hoping for for themselves. So you know, there's some people out there who they really want to be at the top of the bestseller list, and that's great. I mean, that'd be fantastic, right? Everybody would love that. That was not my goal along, and so I feel like I've far surpassed any goal that I had for myself and that feels really good. And it also feels like whatever happens from here, moving forward is okay, right? Yeah, icing on the cake, it's icing on the cake, or whatever. So I feel like that. Like I said, that's a lesson I learned way too late. I learned that lesson too late, but it came actually at a really good time for me.

Kara: 45:12

Yeah, and so You're ready to hear it. Yes, exactly, and when I was also ready to live by it. Yeah Right, Because we're all impressionable to some degree and if we're talking to somebody and they're saying, oh, you know, you haven't made it unless you do X, Y, Z, it's natural for us to be like you're right. Oh yeah, I better do that.

Savannah: 45:32

Yeah, you know, but if your needle's different, I love that too. I think it's so important for so many things. It could even be the method of how, like, if your book doesn't line up with Save the Cat, but it lines up with Hero's Journey or whatever right, it's like they could apply to so many different things and it will help us avoid shiny object syndrome.

Kara: 45:51

Yeah, I think that's you know, there's so many books published every day all the time, right, and the goal for me was let's go find my readers. And I'm still working on that, like I'm a lifelong thing. I feel like, right, my book is a summer book, so I have till the end of summer I find my readers, I mean, and that you know they might come back next summer.

Savannah: 46:17

Yeah, well, speaking of, you're working on book two, so does it feel different this time around? Do you feel more confident in things? Talk about that.

Kara: 46:25

Yes, and I think that's big with your debut in self-publishing is a lot to learn.

Savannah: 46:32

There's a lot you don't know. There is a lot If you think you know it. Things go wrong and you learn all kinds of lessons.

Kara: 46:39

Oh yeah, and the other thing is there's no one great resource for how to do it, or at least I didn't find it. I found with each step I was having to really pick and choose, and there were a lot of questions I had that I could never find the answers to. Yeah, it's hard.

Kara: 46:57

You know I'm sure there's a self-publishing book out there that maybe would have answered them, but I don't know because the stuff is changing constantly. Right Is the other problem, like these platforms are changing. So, yes, I think it's nice to have been through it and now I know how it works. And now I know how it works, and now I know what I would do. Again, I mean one thing I think that's another thing that's important with self-publishing is or at least it was for my book.

Kara: 47:28

I worked as hard as I could to make sure this book looked like a traditionally published book. Yeah, I think it does. It does. To make sure this book looked like a traditionally published book. Yeah, and I think it does. It does, and I think that that has helped me. You know, like I think I needed all the yes, I had to pay people to edit it and I had to pay a cover designer. I needed all of them. There's no way I could have done this myself. People say writing is a solitary practice. I would actually tweak that and say drafting is a solitary practice or can be. Getting it to the finish line is different. You can draft the book by yourself Once you've drafted it. I wouldn't recommend that, by the way. Yeah, but you can do that, but once you've drafted it, you're going to need other people's help from there on out. Yeah, and yeah, I had a great team of people that helped me edit it, make a cover, do my interior, you know, those things matter, I think.

Savannah: 48:32

And for listeners. We will link to the ones she mentioned in the show notes, but we'll also link to where you can get Another Summer by Kara, so look for that. Any final words of encouragement for aspiring romance writers, Kara.

Kara: 48:44

Well, I would say this for aspiring writers, anyways, for all aspiring writers go do it, right. If you're wondering if you can do this, find out, yeah. And if you don't, you know, you may find out that, like hey, I don't actually enjoy this. I'm like I've always wondered if I could write a book and I don't enjoy this. But there you have your answer yeah. And the second piece of advice is read a lot on your genre. And the third piece is keep going, keep going when it's when it's hard, don't give up.

Savannah: 49:15

Yeah, and I will say, kara, you went through the highs and lows you you've probably had, you know, at points, one of the most traumatic experiences I've ever seen a writer go through. So if you can do it, other people can do it too, and that's why I think your story is super inspiring and people are going to love this great behind the scenes look you've given them today. So thank you very much. And where can people find you on the internet?

Kara: 49:37

So I'm on mostly Instagram. My website is caracantlycom and there's a link on there for various ways to order my book, because everybody has a favorite way to get a book right, and hopefully this will answer this. You know I have. You can order signed copies from me, or you can, you know, go to any of the retailers, or you can, you know, has the information for you to order it from your local favorite indie bookstore.

Savannah: 50:08

Love that, and you also will give people a sneak peek of the first chapter if they sign up for your email list, right, yes?

Kara: 50:14

If you sign up for my newsletter, you get a link to read the first chapter. Fabulous so the first chapter that works?

Savannah: 50:20

Yeah, not the one that got the response at the conference. Yeah, although wouldn't that be so fun to see that someday like in comparison. But anyway, we will link to all of that in the show notes and thank you again so much, kara, for coming, for coming on. I think your story is so cool and I'm so glad that we are, like now behind the publish date and we can officially celebrate everything.

Kara: 50:41

Yes, thank you, savannah. It was fun to come on.

Savannah: 50:45

All right. So that's it for this episode of the Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast. Head over to savannahgilbocom forward slash podcast for the complete show notes, including the resources I mentioned today, as well as bonus materials to help you implement what you've learned, and if you're ready to get more personalized guidance for your specific writing stage, whether you're just starting out, stuck somewhere in the middle of a draft, drowning in revisions, or getting ready to publish, take my free 30-second quiz at savannahgilbocom forward slash quiz. You'll get a customized podcast playlist that'll meet you right where you're at and help you get to your next big milestone. Last but not least, make sure to follow this podcast in your podcast player of choice, because I'll be back next week with another episode full of actionable tips, tools and strategies to help you become a better writer. Until then, happy writing.