Pamela Moulton had finished her first novel and had it professionally line edited. So far, so good. Too many aspiring authors don’t even get to that stage. She knew she needed to self-publish. She just had no idea how to do that. Her editor referred her to me.

Most of the authors who tap the services offered by Incubation Press, the company I started when too many of my clients found themselves in Pam’s situation, have worked with me as their writing coach, their editor, or both. Though Pam didn’t find my team and me that way, we sure had fun working together to publish her book.

We were going to start with a cover consult. But Pam was so on top of the homework that by our first Zoom call, my associate, Keri-Rae Barnum, and I already had a synopsis of her novel along with a list of book covers she liked in romance and women’s fiction (her genres). That initial conversation gave us enough information to get her drafts of a character-driven, vector-type cover popular in romance and a nature-focused cover option more popular in women’s fiction. Pam fell in love with one of the romance covers, and with one tiny change, we were in business.

Interior page design followed, but only after I had proofread the manuscript, a step that proved well worth taking and super fun for me. Romantic women’s fiction in which the protagonist is a chef? I’m there all day for that. What a blast!

Pam’s first novel, A Change to the Plan, was officially published last month. Now it’s time for her to cajole her friends, family, associates, and anyone else to read the book and leave an online review. If you could get the ball rolling for her, that would be awesome.