10 Things I Didn't Know About Becoming a Published Author by Abby Luby

About Abby Luby

Abby Luby is a freelance journalist who, for over ten years, has covered nuclear power, particularly issues surrounding the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York. Her articles have appeared in The New York Daily News, The Villager, The Westchester Guardian, The Real Deal, SolveClimateNews, The North County News and the Record Review. She also writes for the Poughkeepsie Journal, The Stamford Advocate/Greenwich Time, Valley Table Magazine, Roll Magazine, Hearst publications HealthyLivingCT, Living@HomeCT covering news, art, food and health. She teaches writing and literature at Marist College.

To find out more about Abby visit http://www.abbylu.com

To find out more about Nuclear Romance visit http://nuclearromance.wordpress.com

10 things I didn’t know about becoming a published author:

By Abby Luby

One of the most difficult lessons I learned about becoming published was acclimating to having your words out there for public consumption. The intimacy you have with the words is special; they are the words which make up your entire book and have been rummaging around in your head forever until you take the plunge and marry them to the written page – then they are finally out there, exposed. It’s like sharing a secret with strangers.

Becoming a published author means you have to develop absolute trust for people who are going to read and review your manuscript, which means that during the process you need to tuck away your ego, especially when story line changes are suggested. Not only do you have to endure the editing process once, the manuscript usually goes from copy editor to proof editor and usually, at some point, the publisher might want to have a look-see. Then there are the other folks you depend on besides your editors: your family, friends, lover (the trickiest of them all). Another eye-opener was learning about the ever-evolving cyber world and social networks you need to immerse yourself in to promote your book once it is published. It is really important it to get your nom de plume out there. Self-promotion is key for authors unless you are on the best seller list. Another thing I didn’t know was when you become published you suddenly find out about other writers who are out there. You realize that writers are unique and given the opportunity, we have a need to connect because we all work alone and are in our heads for much of the time. Knowing about the greater world of writing was an unknown before I became published.

The process of going through being published and promoting your book makes it seem like the actual writing of the book was the easy part. That was a surprise.

When you first become a published author of a novel, it feels really special. But then reality kicks in. You realize that at some point in the future, and not too far down the road, you will have to write another book just to keep your momentum going and to stay in the limelight.

In Nuclear Romance, a debut novel by New York journalist and writer Abby Luby, the tragic death of a 7-year old girl – after swimming at a beach across from a nuclear power plant – sets off a chain of events that involve a sports journalist, an anti-nuclear activist, a grieving mother and her son.A young woman reporter falls prey to a callous plant executive whose job depends on keeping the multi-billion dollar nuclear corporation viable. Set in the US Northeast, the terrifying story that unravels the cause of the girl’s death coincides with growing local anti-nuclear sentiment. The tension escalates after highly radioactive steam escapes from the plant, forcing a mass evacuation.

This novel grips readers’ imaginations with the tension and fear that surround many of today’s nuclear power plants, especially powerful in the aftermath ofJapan’s recent and still unfolding nuclear disaster.