🌎🌍=✅: Final Draft Complete!

It's time for a brief post to celebrate a major milestone: the "final" draft of Two Earths Are Better Than None is complete. By "final", I mean that I consider it now ready for submission to see if I can get an agent interested, If I do end up self-publishing this, then this is likely the version I'll make available unless something unexpected happens in the meantime.

There were no significant changes in this draft. It mainly involved tweaking clumsy wording, fixing a few passages added during the third draft that needed to be clearer, and even deleting some irrelevant paragraphs that slowed the flow. I've ended up with 110,273 words. Phew,

The next task is to update my agent submission package to match the changes since the second draft and to contact my agent shortlist. I'll also update the website to be consistent with my submission's tone and content. The story has become much looser and more fun in recent drafts, so I need to reflect that.

Following my traditional approach of being prepared for all eventualities, I'll push ahead and prepare the novel for self-publishing on Amazon and Draft2Digital. That's not showing any lack of confidence in the submission – it's always a long shot anyway. If I do decide to self-publish, I'll likely be heavily into the first draft of my next novel and won't want a major distraction. If everything's ready to go, it's a much simpler process.

I plan to give the initial submission process three months to bear fruit. I may extend this if I get any tentative interest during that time, such as a request for the full manuscript. If not, I'm likely to self-publish in the September to October 2023 timeframe. As usual, that will be on Amazon exclusively for the first three months before expanding to other outlets.

That's it for now. Next, I'll revise the plans for my new novel Fractal Peace. I'll be back with an update before I dive headlong into that world.