The beta draft of my book is done!

It’s been a bit of a rush, but the big news is that my beta manuscript for Outsized Leadership is finished.

It's gone to the publisher and it's now with what’s known as a developmental editor, who will no doubt tear my beautiful manuscript to shreds… Or maybe, will come back to me with what's working (hopefully) and what isn't (hopefully not too much of this).

It’s also gone to the 16 of you who said you would be beta readers.

How it feels

It feels better than I expected.

Getting it to this stage has taken most of my spare hours for the last few months, working full days most weekends.

It's the first time the book has existed as a whole thing rather than a pile of chapters in various states. I'm really pleased with it. I think it's a good book. And I genuinely think if I hadn’t written it, I would still want to read it. Not sure if that’s a low bar or not… but it’s where I’m at.

I’ve most recently enjoyed the research for the book. I had the overall structure and methodology etc a few months ago. But it’s also now built on a lot of stories, some about people you'll have heard of and some about people you won't, along with a fair bit of scientific research behind the points I'm making. Tracking those down has been fun, and one or two of them changed what I thought I was arguing.

Why the rush

The last few weeks have been a push, and the reason is my planned launch date.

Once the final manuscript is handed over, the publishing process takes about seven months before the book is actually available to buy. I'll come back in another update as to what actually happens in those seven months. Suffice to say, actually writing the book is just the start of it.

Working backwards, I'm targeting a launch in the middle of June next year.

I want it out before the summer for two reasons. I'll be running a few launch events, and there's not much point doing those when half the people I'd want in the audience are away. And I think this will be a good book for people to take on holiday, so getting it out just before they go seems sensible.

So the plan is to make the next round of changes quickly and hand the final manuscript over to the publisher around the second week of November.

There's still room for a few more beta readers

If you meant to sign up last time and didn't get round to it, you can still sign up here.

It's a tight turnaround, because I need comments back by the end of Sunday 25 October. But you don't need to read the whole thing. Read a few chapters, read the ones that look most relevant to you, or read the first fifty pages and tell me whether you'd have carried on. All of that is useful to me.

Next time: what actually happens in those seven months, and why it's changed how I'm spending my time.

Thanks for being on this journey with me, I appreciate your support.

Mostyn

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