Among the many wonderful things about being married to fellow writer Kim Conrey is the opportunity to celebrate her successes with the deep understanding and appreciation of the 1,000+ hours of creative effort required to produce a publishable book.

When my first wife, Kate McDonald (RIP), ran ultramarathons or competed as a triathlete, I had no inkling of the intensive work she had to do in practice and at the event just to finish, let alone medal. I could only stand by in awe. With Kim, I know exactly what’s required to complete the first draft of a novel, subject it to innumerable rewrites, search out a publisher and go through their editing process, fight for the right book cover, and then coax readers to give the work a try from among the millions of other choices at their fingertips.

Oh, yes, I can empathize with Kim’s journey at not just a bone-deep level but a subatomic one. And for the first time ever, I get to experience the joys and trials of nearly simultaneous book launches with my wife. Kim’s first novel, the thrilling, smart, and sexy sci-fi romance Stealing Ares, will launch on September 29, 2022. Then, my long-overdue sequel to Hardscrabble Road, the unimaginatively titled Return to Hardscrabble Road, will launch on October 11th.

Unless a reader is married to a writer or dares to have them as close friends (we’re often not the best company—and our hygiene can suffer mightily—as deadlines approach), one might not understand everything that goes into launching a book. To give you some appreciation of those activities, here is a summary of what authors must still accomplish after the hard work of writing the book is done:

1. Find a publisher or convince one’s current publisher to consider the new book. If the author wants/has a Big Five publisher (i.e., Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Hachette, Simon & Schuster), then add the preliminary step of either finding a literary agent or, if one already has representation, convincing that agent the new book is worthy of forwarding to the publisher of the previous work(s). The find-an-agent part can take years or even a decade or longer, and just because one gets representation doesn’t mean this agent will be able to sell one’s work (I’ve fired multiple agents for this reason) or that it won’t take additional years to find the right publisher at the right time. Authors wanting to take on new genres have been told by their agent/publisher that the new book isn’t in line with their previous ones; therefore, these gatekeepers refuse to represent/publish it. Many writers linger in agent/publisher search limbo for a long time. They do all the right things—from going to writers conferences to meet with agents and acquisitions editors to staying informed about which agents are selling books and what new agents are seeking clients—but timing is everything. “This is great, but I have another client with a book like this” or “we just published a book like this” are common refrains. It’s easier to find a smaller publisher who will work directly with an author, but even this can take a year or longer. Kim wrote a nonfiction manuscript that has been under consideration by a midsize publisher since June 2021.

Even after a publisher offers a contract, one must go through multiple rounds of edits and decide in each case whether one’s voice or vision will be compromised if the edit is accepted. Cover art is a common source of frustration and anxiety for authors. Often, they must fight for a cover that is representative of the genre but also reflects the book in question. Friends of mine have delayed the release of their book for up to a year because the publisher’s cover artist produced something that was all wrong; they were willing to go to the back of another cover artist’s queue rather than agree to an image that would put off readers.

Self-publishing is an obvious alternative to the agonizingly slow insanity of traditional publishing, but the self-published author must be the master of all aspects of the publishing process or hire others who are, which can be expensive. Editing, cover design, book formatting and layout (print and ebook), audiobook recording (optional but encouraged), and sales and distribution channels all need to be handled before a single book can be sold.

2. While a publisher is working to bring one’s book into the world—or one has decided to self-publish and is either doing or hiring out all the publishing activities—a new level of stress arises over how to make the book marketable. If you examine any given book, you’ll immediately see some marketability decisions the publisher and/or author made. The book title and cover design are perhaps the biggest ones, because we all judge books based on these details. If the title sounds awkward or is unmemorable and/or if the cover art is unappealing in any subjective way, readers are likely to move on to something more eye-catching.

Once past these hurdles, many readers considering a book purchase will not only examine the summary—essentially a book pitch to sell the reader on its premise and promises—but they will also look at the blurbs from other authors or authorities (the more famous the better) extolling the virtues of the book and the writing. Big publishers with popular authors among their client base can get them to blurb an author’s book and lend it credibility—it’s one of the reasons for pursuing the Big Five—but the little fish in the big pond or those with a smaller publisher are usually forced to seek those blurbs on their own. Trying to convince other busy people to give up their already-endangered spare time to read one’s book and write a snappy blurb for it is yet another difficult task filled with rejection, frustration, and endless waiting. And while the blurbs that one finally receives can be heartwarming, they might instead be uninspired, poorly written, or otherwise useless.

3. All those features are included in the book itself—they are only the initial steps that enable the promotion process to go into full swing. Online ads, social media posts, newsletters, blog tours, podcasts, a book launch party and subsequent signings, book club talks, pleas for reviews, and other means of encouraging purchases and word-of-mouth recommendations consume one’s days and nights and even invade dreams. Why doesn’t the publisher do all this if they’re putting up all the money for the book and want to see a return on their investment? An excellent question to which there is no good answer. Books by Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, and the like get most of the promotional dollars—i.e., the books that don’t need such backing to become a bestseller—but myriad other authors get much less attention from the Big Five, and small publishers have almost no promotional budget for their authors. Therefore, it’s left up to the writers to promote their work. And meanwhile, every other author is trumpeting their own buy-my-book message but seemingly with more skill and better resources.

It’s easy to give up, to leave it up to Fate to guide readers to one’s book, but look at the amount of work needed to get to this point. How can one quit now? So, the author presses on while embarking on, yes, another book.

The next time you’re in a bookstore or perusing titles online, please spare a thought for the labor that went into each completed, published book. Every one of them–as with my marriage to Kim–is a miracle of perseverance and love.