What happens after submitting the novel?

I recently submitted my seventh novel to my editor at Avid Reader Press at Simon & Schuster. It is called THE CURSE OF PIETRO HOUDINI and will be launched in January of 2024 both in the U.S. and the Commonwealth; the latter through Transworld at Penguin Random House (which still should have been called Random Penguin but no one asked me).

Now that PIETRO is done, and the cover is being designed and it all goes to copyediting … now what?

Part of me feels that writing these kinds of procedural and industry insights has an archival quality because I really do wonder novelists can survive in the future, and perhaps notes of this kind will be quaintly seen someday like the diaries of ice harvesters from Maine discussing their own daily routines.

What … did I just bring up the death of the novel again?

No. I brought up the death of novelists. Now that there are thousands of AI-generated "novels" hitting the market on Amazon and flooding the space, it is clear that something like the novel will survive (in the way that Pringles are something like food), but novelists themselves may die off before the form.

Unless, of course, readers come to realize that AI will never live, never die, never wonder, never decide, never face the consequences of its actions, and will never be able to do more than amalgamate the human experience without ever being able to attend to its particulars; particulars which are, indeed life. After all, no one lives a general life. Every life is authentic. What else?

But, since I'm here and I'm a full-time novelists in a world trying to kill us, I might as well share the next steps.

So PIETRO is submitted. That means I have three things to do at this moment in time (no, I don't count this). The first is to support the publication process. That means answering any questions from the fact checkers or copyeditors and also giving my input on the covers as well as completing the Author Questionaires that my publishers send me. That asks about any contacts I have, anything I want them to know to help sell the book, and more. After that — after the text settles and the cover is designed – it gets pretty quiet before the ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) go out and the elite and elect get a chance to comment on it.

Number is foreign sales. That is handled by the foreign rights team, in my case, at Writers House in New York. They and their sub-agents shop the book at London and Frankfurt, gets book scouts interested, and hopefully those scouts send them to the editors in Germany and France and Japan and the rest of the world with recommendations.

Technically I'm not supposed to get involved. But I do. Because I know some of the editors and I've worked with them before so I write them to say I have a new book and I think (if I do) it might fit their lists. The personal touch matters. It can get a book read, It can never get it sold. These are professionals, and I am doing them a favor letting them know something they might want is available. Whether they do want it will be determined by considerations far beyond my control.

And third … I write another book! I currently have the first draft of my 2025 novel called TRAMUNTANA. So now I press on and hope to have it completed in the autumn for review by my agent who, if he likes it, will sell it onward to my American and British publishers.

So one eye is on the past and another on the future at all times and the work goes on.

Warm wishes from Sitges, Spain, everyone.

Derek B. Miller
PS. Sorry about the typos.