Hello My Name is Sharkbait! I am thrilled to share my book title and cover today, and a few more details on my writing journey leading up to launch. When I first started this project, I thought the title would be the hardest part. I mean, how could I sum up 20 years of planning and 150 days of walking appropriately? To inspire potential readers, I’d have to be creative, catchy, unique, and memorable … all with a few short words. But also, none of that matters if the book cover doesn’t translate it and convince you to stop and pick it up. Only time will tell, but I know this for sure … success or failure, it is 100% on brand. And when you read it, you’ll see why.

I’ll talk more about the cover in a future post, but first I want to explain my writing journey of the past many years. There are no less than 723 billion experts ready to tell you exactly how to write, edit, and publish a book. And wouldn’t you know it, they have 723 billion different opinions of exactly what to do. I won’t pretend to be an expert, or sum up the unlimited paths that could get you here, but I’ll share mine. This part gets long, so if you don’t care to hear me rant and rave about the intricate process, you can peace out here and come back next week to learn more about publishing and promotion. Teaser … how cool is that animated GIF at the top? Right?! … right?

Or unsubscribe, I won’t be offended. I’l know though, I always know.

Anyone still here? Ok great, grab a cup of coffee, and let’s dive in to the fun gift of feedback. A gift you pay a lot for.

Writing. I knew I wanted to create a novel that followed my real journey, but not just repeat my journal. I spent years reviewing my blog entries … both to relive the fun, but also start taking note of my favorite stories, memorable characters, and dramatic moments that could translate best. I finally formed a rough outline of ideas, and then when I sat down to write … realized I had no idea how to operationalize it. I wasn’t a trained novelist. I simply didn’t know the mechanics. How would I translate inner monologue ramblings into action sequences and character dialogue? I had no idea (and ChatGPT didn’t really exist mainstream yet). So I did the next best thing, I hired help. I paid a writing coach to read every blog entry and watch every YouTube video from 2018, then spent the next 12 months carving out the manuscript draft with her expert guidance. I wrote one chapter a week and edited another after her feedback. It was sloppy at first, but much like my blog writing, eventually found its rhythm. The process was painful (so many late nights!), but it started to transform me from an amateur writer into an author. Total cost, $1400.

Editing. I loved writing, but holy hell did I hate editing. Is there anything worse than being told your baby is ugly? Or that your great idea falls flat? Or my personal favorite, “No one cares about your gear and meal plan.” This process took another FULL year, and honestly, could have gone longer if I wasn’t so OCD hell-bent on getting this done by the holidays. There are very structured rounds of editing in the book publishing world, and I was committed to doing them all to create a finished product any agent that passed me up would regret as much as snubbing Julia Roberts on Rodeo Drive. Big mistake. Huge.

Step 1 – Beta Readers. The first step is to pay someone to read your very raw manuscript and tell you everything wrong with it. You typically get a 1-2 page opinion back that requires more work. I decided to shortcut this a bit and had an author friend do a full read, and a few strangers read the opening chapters. I got great feedback, hard as it was, and knew where I had work to do. The more you do this, ideally, the less painful future steps are. Total cost, $200

Step 2 – Revisions. Feedback acquired, I spent 2 months restructuring some early storylines that didn’t pay off (“false peaks” as they’re called in the industry, an apt name for a book about the AT). I cut planning chapters and integrated them in as later flashbacks or anecdotes. I removed entire characters that didn’t pay off, and expanded storylines for more threaded continuity. But, I was still writing a narrative non-fiction, so didn’t want to just make things up. It’s written like a novel, but it’s also a memoir. So this took a bit of creativity. By the end, I’d say 95% of the story is still true, with some caveats. For example, one of the main characters is a combination of 3 actual people – my college roommate, my long-time hiking buddy, and another friend who joined me the first week. Those moments are real, those 3 people will know them … even if called by a different name. Also, let’s be honest, most of the dialogue is my interpretation of 6 year old memories and what the scene needed in addition. Total cost, $0.

Step 5 – Developmental Edit. Now that I had a less-raw 2nd draft, it was time to get a real editor. This is similar to beta reading, but on steroids. Now you pay someone a lot more money for a weekly word count to read your chapters, give you in-line comments of where to rework sections, and a final synopsis at the end of it’s core problems. I was not a huge fan, but it was a necessary evil. We spent 4 months together doing groups of chapters at a time, reviewing and responding to feedback … cutting, re-writing, adding. A lot of adding. By the end, it was definitely more polished (“make sure you add dialogue tags so people don’t lose track who’s talking.” “is this the same day or later? be specific in timing.”) … but also 20,000 words longer. I was writing a novel, not War and Peace. There was some minor inline copy editing, but mostly led to a better but longer rambling of the story. Total cost, $2300.

Step 6 – Copy and Line Edit. Ok, this is where it got fun. If you find a good copy editor, you can run through the forest with a machete, slashing and carving a clear path to the other side. It was so refreshing to cut with precision and keep the story arcs in tact. This focused on spelling, grammar, sentence structure, style-guide rules, and word-by-word selection. I found a great editor that knew exactly what I wanted and how to deliver. We switched to compound words, removed “that” a lot, redacted things that didn’t make the sentence better, etc. The 20,000 words added previously were all smoothed out to good length and well-paced read. There are a lot of AI tools to do this step, but a real editor can drive consistency and unique styling. For me, this was important for many reasons, one of them being numbers. Numbers are critical in a story about measuring miles, counting calories, blogging days, etc. Every time a number was used, we had to make sure it was correctly numeric or written out. And the copy edits had to be perfect. There was no going back to fix a misplaced comma for someone’s paperback on the shelf. This whole process took about 6 weeks, because it was not about content as much as choice. Total cost, $600.

Final cost, $4,500. Plus a lot of blood, sweat, tears, sleepless nights, hurt ego, delayed priorities of normal life, and probably some future carpal tunnel. So trust me when I say thank you for even considering to buy my baby.

After 2 years, I had reviewed, read, and rewritten the chapters more times than I could count. It sort of makes you respect why some actors rarely watch their own movies after filming wraps. If I wanted, I could have done this cycle over and over again for another 5 years. Maybe after a dozen more rounds it would be better than today? Tough to say, but it’s definitely ready. And honestly, if I didn’t love the story so much, I’d be damn sick of the book at this point. It could be the torture-loving masochist in me, or just the self-absorbed persona of us narcissist types that decide to write memoirs … but I still love it.

Hello Neiman!