Mom-preneurs and other Sleep Deprived Friends

Entrepreneur hours aren't 9-5. Not if they want to be successful.

Recently another writer chastised me for having my computer on while my husband was home. I admit, it stung. The implicit message was that whatever work I was doing on the computer wasn't as valuable as whatever I might have been doing for or with my husband.

Fortunately for me, my husband does not agree with her. He knows that it takes more than full time hours to start and run your own business...and when you are hand-creating the product you sell (ie writing the novels you publish) it takes even longer.

I love the term Mom-preneur. It signifies that Mom is also a full time job. Staying at home to raise your children and running a business isn't all together too different from having a full time job and starting a business on the side. In other words, in both of those situations you will both burn the midnight oil and burn the candle from both ends!

That was me, last night. (And many, many other nights.) I had the idea to create a Cozy Mystery Magazine Sample book many moons ago and finally had time (or finally created time) to finish it.

The other amazing authors on this blog provided their samples, covers, bios, photos, and legal permissions, and I put it all together. It's in approval stage right now...first to Nancy who spearheads the blog, then to the other authors.

After that I will publish it to Smashwords for free to be distributed to all of the online bookstores. As soon as it arrives on those shelves it will be published to Amazon (so that it can be made free there as fast as possible.) It will also be available for any of the authors here to give away from their blogs and hopefully from this blog as well! Until then, here's the cover...I have to say, I'm rather fond of it!

Traci Tyne Hilton burns the midnight oil writing The Mitzy Neuhaus Mysteries, The Plain Jane Mysteries, and other things like a Shaker Romance (coming winter 2013.) She has two zany daughters in gradeschool, a chicken with post traumatic stress disorder, a duck with entitlement issues, a dog who won't stop sleeping on the couch and a very nice husband who doesn't mind (usually) if she has to work while he is at home.

Production Notes

*Post Blog Publication Note: THE EARLY BIRD GETS THE WORM! Good, Clean, Murder is Now Available*

Since I am inches away from publishing Good, Clean, Murder, I thought I'd share some of the steps it took to create it!

First, I brought pages and pages of the story to my critique group. My critique group is amazing, and led by none other than the man who wrote Writing Fiction for Dummies. They gave feedback on pacing, character, action, dialogue--and anything else they thought I was doing wrong.

While I was still writing it,  I polished the beginning to within an inch of its life, and sent it off to a couple contests. As the prizes included feedback from agents and publishing house editors I knew this would be invaluable for me. I finaled in both contests, and won the mystery category at the Phoenix Rattler. (You can read more about that here and here.) Contests and crit groups are a great way to help develop a story.

After that it was time to refine and polish. I sent the whole story to a couple of beta readers. Beta's give your book a "second" reading and give you feedback on weaknesses and strengths of the story. My romance beta let me know she thought my description of the male romantic lead wasn't handsome enough. I decided that was worth fixing! After betas my little baby went through three professional editors and then another reading by yours truly. I have to say, for that final read through the kindle and it's note taking function was a life saver! No more staring at a bright white screen and trying not to add more mistakes than I fixed!

With a clean document in hand, it was time to format. Like editing, many writers chose to hire professionals for this. I have done it both ways--though when I hired formatting help, it was for the paperback books which I find more challenging. This time I decided to do it all myself because there were certain features I wanted to learn. I won't give away all of my new tricks but I will say that the mobipocket app is a life saver, and I wish I had been using it all along.

Towards the end of the project I hired a graphic designer (Andrew Rothery) to create the cover. This is another aspect of the job I can handle myself, but prefer to hire out, as usually my vision is beyond my ability.

I began my story in June of 2012, so all in all, creating Good, Clean, Murder has been an almost ten month project!

Now I'm going to get really open, and share how much all of this cost. If you are a writer considering self publishing, this is the kind of nitty gritty that really comes in handy. Good, Clean, Murder is my most professional book to date, and also likely my most expensive to produce. The cost of the cover was about $80. The cost for the three editors was around $400. Entrance to the two contests cost me $50 total.  Prizes for the launch party will come in around $100. Advertizing for the release will be $60. We can round up and say that producing Good, Clean, Murder was $700. All of my other mysteries made a profit by their second month, but none of the others cost even close to this much to produce. We shall see if the prizes and advertizing do their job. *praying!* As for hiring three different people to each edit it, I will never regret spending that money. I know where my talents lie, and it isn't in self-editing!

To win some of these fun prizes, stop by my Facebook event on March 2nd! I'll have games throughout the day with prizes ranging from signed copies of the book to Plain Jane coffee mugs, to a gift certificate for a great online yoga studio!

Thank you all for being a part of this process!

Traci Tyne Hilton is the author of Good, Clean, Murder, The Mitzy Neuhaus Mystery Series, and one of the authors in the The Tangle Saga series of science fiction novellas. She was the Mystery/Suspense Category winner for the 2012 Christian Writers of the West Phoenix Rattler Contest, a finalist for Speculative Fiction in the same contest, and has a Drammy from the Portland Civic Theatre Guild. Traci serves as the Vice President of the Portland chapter of the American Christian Fiction Writers Association.
Traci earned a degree in History from Portland State University and still lives in the rainiest part of the Pacific Northwest with her husband the mandolin playing funeral director, their two daughters, and their dog, Dr. Watson.
More of Traci's work can be found at http://www.tracihilton.com