Monday, September 1, 2014

Getting published is super easy...except not really.

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.