I got up from my chair and internally screamed multiple times with excitement.

"It was a real pleasure to read."

"I cannot overstress how much I enjoyed your book. It is on par with novels published by the Big 6. I was thoroughly engaged the whole time. I loved the characters, the setting, the writing, and the pace of the plot. Your language was incredibly strong, and you painted gripping and captivating pictures."

"The different points of view and interwoven stories worked beautifully. The reveals and twists and turns were deeply satisfying, and I was thrilled when I reached the conclusion."

"Overall your writing is incredibly strong. Your manuscript is largely free of typos."

Suggested changes included formatting sentences (I am a run-on sentence QUEEN). That's IT aside from the obvious little typos.

Content changes were limited to four main points. Two were "reveal these sooner to be less jarring", one was "give more reason behind X's motives", and the final one was to change the ending as it felt unsatisfying.

Finally, I had someone to tell me what small changes needed to be made for the story to be as cohesive as possible. At this point, my brain couldn't do it anymore. The motive change and one of the reveals worked synonymously. I was able to get two birds stoned at once. Easy enough to reveal the other thing earlier.

The ending, I realized, definitely needed change. But how? The problem with said ending is that I had invested years in writing the sequels which are all disjointed, and connected the main character from book three into the end of book one. I had a connection with that character. But readers didn't. So yeah, it would come off as very strange to everyone else except me.

The editor had a few suggestions on how to make the ending more conclusive and satisfying. So I altered it, removed random character who didn't need to make her appearance here. This change also helps books four to have more content, because that's when it'll happen.

The editor's suggestions worked well, I was able to utilize them and revise the ending.

Changes made, manuscript sent back!

I've been assigned a publishing specialist who will work alongside me throughout my journey. She's really excited about my book, thrilled that I'm open for cover design, said my book sounds like something she'd read outside of work.

Of course, I take all of this with a grain of salt. After all, I'm paying them, of course they're going to be encouraging me and rooting me on. But it also doesn't feel fake.