Stephen
King wrote an excellent book about writing, ON WRITING, in which he shares his
own writing wisdom and his journey as a writer. He says he put a railroad spike
over his desk and stuck his rejections on it. Apparently, there were quite a
few rejections on the spike when he finally got an acceptance.
Many
people think, “I will write a book and then people will knock my door down
trying to publish it!” HA! In a way, this isn’t a bad attitude for a newbie
writer to have as it helps with motivation. As soon as one has started the
submission process, one will quickly get a dose of reality.
My
book, MEADOW PERKINS, TRUSTY SIDEKICK, will be published next year by Soul Mate
Publishing (YAYAYAYAY). Here is my journey to publication so far:
~ I
finished the book in October 2013. Assumed that I’d have a publisher by
Christmas. (HAAAAAAA)
~
Started querying agents in November 2013 with a bad query letter and bad
formatting in my emails. I thought it didn’t matter. IT DOES MATTER.
~ Got
a great many rejections.
~ Sent
out a new batch of queries with a slightly less crappy query letter and formatting
that was maybe 5% better.
~ A
million more rejections.
~ Yet
more queries and rejections. Ask me anything about queries or rejections. I am
an expert in both!
~ At
some point in the spring, my query letter got better and so did my formatting. Agents
and publishers started requesting to read the full manuscript. I got some good
feedback and more rejections. But let me just tell you, a personalized
rejection instead of a form rejection feels like an acceptance.
~
Fewer “Dear Author, thank you for giving us the opportunity to review your
work, unfortunately…” letters came in.
~ 9
months of querying. I got tired. I decided to submit one more time.
~ Blah
blah nothing.
~ I
decided to self-publish which I found terrifying. But I had to get ok with the
fact that people were going to read my book. People other than my mother and
bff. AND that people might not like it. Yikes.
~ As
soon as I decided to self-publish (I am in no way bashing self-publishing!!! I’m
just scared of it.) I got THE email.
So as
you can see, it all happened in a flash. Or it took months of blood, sweat, and
tears.
