Guest Post: It Takes a Village to Create a Book by Author Kevin T. Johns

There’s an old saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.”

The same thing is true about creating and publishing a book.

At the end of October, my latest novel M School, a young adult action thriller with an all-girl cast, will be released. My name will be on the cover, but a plethora of people will have helped make that book a reality.

M School started when John Muldoon (1) of Monthly Experiments urged readers of his blog to spend one-month working on a secret project. The idea was to pick a focused activity, work on it every day for a month, and not tell a soul until the month was over. I chose to write every day as my activity, and by the end of the month the first draft of M School was complete. Without John’s secret project challenge, the book might never have been written.

As I revised the manuscript, I read chapters of the book to my critique group. Fellow authors Caroline Frechette (2), Eric Leveque (3), and S.M. Carriere (4), Aurelia Osborne (5) and Marie-Claude Goulet (5) (6), provided feedback, advice, and support throughout the two years I spend revising the novel.

When I had a draft that I felt was ready for consumption, I sent it out to half a dozen beta readers. Doug Turnball (7), Jen Desmarais (8), Gillian Davis (9), Megan Suntrum (10), and my wife Sarah Johns (11) all provided valuable feedback from a reader perspective.

I then hired author/editor Megan Linski (12) to copy edit the book. You can listen to the interview I did with Megan about the editing process on my podcast, The Writing Coach.

Next, Angela Friskoe (13) of Covered Creativity designed the (bloody) awesome cover for M School.

Diana Lester (14) and Siobhan Maas (15) then proofread the book for me, finding dozens of errors that had managed to slip past my eye.

And now, as I gear up for the book’s release, Arya (16) here at Sea of Pages has been kind enough to allow me to guest post on her blog as a means of promoting the book by sharing my creative experience with you.

As you can see, no less than 16 people have played a major role in helping to make M School a reality, and dozens of others have helped here and there along the way. (If you want to see the culmination of our efforts, get on the M School early notification mailing list today!)

I want you to remember: when the time comes for you to create your book, don’t fall for the myth of the solitary author. No one does it all alone. Get help, like I did, so that your book can be as great as it can be!

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Kevin T. Johns is an author, writing coach, and ghostwriter. He helps authors from around the world get ideas out of their heads, onto the page, and into the hands of readers. Grab a free copy of his short guide for authors by clicking the image below.