submitting my first manuscript

book updates

May 16, 2025

this week, i submitted my first manuscript to a publisher for consideration!! holy crap!

55,000 words, 185 pages, a table of contents, chapter titles, and a visual sample of photographs i plan to include in the book – all wrapped in one tidy pdf.

until now, the book lived in a chaotic google doc, with chapters and subchapters spread across a total of 98 tabs. pulling it all together was a huge milestone.

the manuscript feels like something i can hand to the stranger who asks what i’ve been working on (…or my parents, who support me deeply but still rue the day i left my job). it’s not perfect, and it’s certainly not the final evolution of the book – but it feels complete. it’s something i feel good about. something i’m proud of.

visual appendix for the manuscript – click to view each image

a little recap on how we got here…

in february, after a year of writing, i finished the first draft of my book.

in march, i nervously sent it out to a group of beta readers – friends from my life, online friends i met through writing, and a few newsletter readers (now friends!) who reached out from my last post.1

slowly, the feedback trickled in – and, to my relief, the feedback was good. it was phenomenal. encouraging. the book clearly resonated deeply with people – stirring questions around identity, purpose, wanderlust, and love. readers left comments like “i kept wanting to read more,” “this resonated with so many of the existential questions i’ve grappled with in my mid-twenties,” and – in one case – “i cried twice.”

after grinding away on the book for a year, not knowing whether it would mean anything to other people, i can’t express how happy i was to find that it did.

since then, i’ve been heads down revising the draft based on the beta feedback. i deleted and rewrote entire sections, rearranged a lot of things, added a few new parts, and corrected a number of spelling/grammar mistakes…

then i turned the messy 55,000 word, 98-tabbed google doc into a 185-page manuscript, the standard format for publisher submissions (example here).

creating the manuscript felt a bit like turning in a college essay – double-spaced, numbered pages, indented paragraph starts – but with higher stakes and even less sleep. i’m pretty sure i screamed a little when i hit “submit.”

then, true to my college self, i redownloaded the already-submitted file and went over everything three more times. some things truly never change.

so who did i send it to for consideration? a publisher called autofocus – an american press that specializes in “artful autobiographical writing.” they’ve published writing in the form of memoir-in-journals, text-image works, essays, even letters – and they feel like a perfect home for my book. if you’re looking for a recommendation from their catalog, i loved Emily Costa’s Until It Feels Right!

i don’t expect much – i know that with publishing, it can feel like launching something into the void, especially as a debut author. but i’m happy to shoot my shot and see what happens. maybe, just maybe, the void will bounce something back my way 😊

looking ahead

i’ll be honest, i felt pretty exhausted going into this month. the process of writing a book has been long, exhausting at times. actualizing that written thing into a physical book will take even longer. there’s so much that remains to be done.

but reaching this milestone has given me a lot more energy. i feel rejuvenated, excited – and all the more determined to bring my story to life.

i’ve decided to pause paid subscriptions for this leg of the book process. to everyone who has supported me with a paid subscription so far: you guys are the freaking best, and your names will be acknowledged in the book. i will also be mailing you a free signed copy of the book when it comes out.

for those interested in supporting me now or in the future: please pre-order a copy of the book when the time comes!! ☺️

lastly, if you made it this far, i wanted to say thank you all for being with me on this journey. this newsletter can sometimes feel like a mini void of its own, but it means a lot to know you’re here, reading.