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.