S.A. Bradley gives a first-person testimonial about working with Book Launchers to produce his nonfiction book (titled in the video as Screaming for How Horror Makes You Happy and Healthy). He describes initially not knowing how to move a manuscript toward publication and credits Book Launchers for creative guidance (identifying theme, outlining vs. "pantser" approach), accountability with soft weekly deadlines, and practical help with editing and distribution. Bradley strongly emphasizes the necessity of content and copy editing and says the service saved him time and prevented procedural mistakes when publishing on platforms like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Chapters
Book Launchers has been immeasurably important in a book getting out. When I first got involved with them, I had no clue how to do a book. I knew how to write, I knew how to put something in word, but I had no clue how to get it moving forward, know when it's kind of close to being done, and then getting the help for things that are complete landmines. Hi, I'm S.A. bradley, and the name of my book is Screaming for How Horror Makes yous Happy and Healthy. One of the big things is that I had no clue what I didn't know about getting a book published, getting a book formatted, all of those things. Book Launchers is really important because it allowed me to kind of lasso in the creative idea that I had. You have a concept of a book, you may be able to put an outline together, but do you know what your theme is? And so the very beginning of working with book Launchers is more on the creative side. And the creative side is very inspiring. So you get to speak with someone. They will let you know whether or not you need to use strong outline or if you're more of a pantser. They'll kind of figure out how that goes. And I ended up being a mixture of pantser and outline person. I had a pretty strong idea of what I wanted to do and I needed to have it cultivated and I needed to have it reined in in certain spots. Also giving me an idea of what is in the market right now. What do people really want to read now? Attention spans have changed, desires for whether longer or shorter book has changed. So all of that stuff you may not know as an author, you may know as a reader. But wanting to be an author, wanting to know what your genre tends to bring or desire from people, do they want a long book, they want a short book? Things like that are kind of important. But keeping your eye on the prize, finding out what the theme of your book is, coming to that as organic conclusion, the very important. And then the actual writing of the book was more of a championing. So as I'm moving forward, I'm giving chapters. I have a deadline to try and hit. It's a soft deadline, so people who are not hardcore writers don't have to die on the battlefield. At the same point, you have something that you're going to bring, bring to conversation, hopefully every week. And in that you start to get a better idea of your voice. And I think really you may have a voice when you're coming in, but you really get to practice and hone that V with someone else who's able to support you as you move forward through your book. Once you get through that, then comes what I think is the most important, which is you have a book, you have written it, you have put your passion into it. Now it's time for additional drafts, and now is the time to start editing. And the copy editing and the content editing are incredibly important. And what I tell people all the time is if. If you just don't feel like you want to get this boutique of services at any point, no matter what you do in your life, get yourself a content and a copy editor. You're if. If you don't, those two things will save your life. If I put out the book that I was going to put out just with my ideas and my ideas of what editing would be like, it wouldn't have been nearly as good, especially when you're doing nonfiction, because nonfiction begs people to get into a conversation with you. They're looking to you for some kind of information. The key thing that I would say about getting book launchers or using book launchers is that you don't know what you don't know. And book launchers was an amazing benefit for. I talk about it a lot in the idea of, like, being at sea and you're in a sailboat, but there's no wind whatsoever, and you're just out there. So you want to write a book. You've got all these ideas and great, you've got a boat, you've got a sail. How do you figure out where the land is? What are you going to do? And I found that Book launchers was able to give me some kind of forward motion. They put an oar in that boat so that I could paddle until I got some wind. All that stuff was me looking into the unknown, having no clue, having a concept of what a book is all about and how you put one together. But yeah, I had calm guides who were able to not only help me create the book, form it with creativity, but also give me an understanding of where I needed to go, how I put that out. Because quite honestly, people put out books all the time, and maybe you see them walking their book from place to place, but being able to get into a brick and mortar or getting yourself on Amazon, there, it's easy. And yet there are a lot of ways to screw up. And so for me, book launchers helped me realize how quickly things can change in the industry and how it can change procedurally on something like Amazon or Barnes and Noble. They may not necessarily tell you they don't make it really easy for you to be able to put that stuff out. Book Launchers allows me to be the best creator that I possibly can and essentially save a ton of time having to get all the bruises and bumps that there are when you're trying to figure out a new industry.
