My Road To Publication Part 7

Wow… Part 7!!! I apologize for this taking so long. I’ve tried only to hit the highlights, but I guess my road was a little longer than I thought. This will be my final post on the subject so I’ll get right to it.

After sending my query to Spencer Hill, Kate did ask to see the full MS. Of course, I sent it out immediately. I had had other request from agents and publishers to see the full MS so I knew it could take three months or more to hear back from her.

Putting my experience to work for me, I tried not to think about it. I knew these things took time, sometimes a lot of time. I bit my nails and paced the floor. Before I knew it, two whole hours had passed. Yep, seriously… two hours!

Trying to get a handle on the situation, I limited myself to checking my e-mail to only twenty or thirty times a day. Within the week, I saw where Kate had emailed me back. My heart pounded wildly in my chest. This is too soon. She must have really hated it.  The other rejection letters ran through my mind. “Not a good fit for us at this time. I didn’t fall in love with it. This is a subjective business…”

With my hands shaking, I finally clicked to open the e-mail. I could see this wasn’t a typical form rejection. It was a full-length letter with suggestions on improving my MS. This had never happened to me before. On one hand, I was a little disheartened. If she had all of these suggestions, she must not have liked it. Right? But, she was giving me some great advice, little nuggets of gold to help improve my MS, and for that, I was very thankful.

Reading to the end of the letter she said if I was interested in having Angelina’s Secret published through Spencer Hill, I should contact her and we’d set up a time to talk on the phone.

If I was interested? Oh yeah, I was interested!!!

The call came, the deal was made, and I was ecstatic. Angelina’s Secret was going to be published. Even though I am a writer, I can’t come up with the words to tell you how great this felt. I had worked so hard for so long and now… My book was going to be published!

I was overjoyed. Still basking in this wonderful feeling, I received an e-mail from my agent saying he had a publisher that was VERY interested in Our ParaNormal Lives. This was too good to be true, but it was indeed true. After a few back and forth’s I was offered a contract through Llewellyn Publishing.

Working simultaneously to see these two books published has been exhausting and thrilling. Angelina’s Secret is scheduled to be released on Feb. 1, 2012, and with a new title On Haunted Ground is scheduled to be released May 8, 2012.

Check back tomorrow for the cover reveal for On Haunted Ground.

My Road To Publication Part 6

My agent did as I asked; he quit submitting my MS and I got busy polishing it. This was a tedious process and it took five grueling months to complete. After finishing, I sent it back to my agent and he again started submitting it to publishers.

Knowing I had done everything I could possibly do for Our ParaNormal Lives, I returned my attention to Angelina’s Secret. It was then that I truly realized just how much I loved writing fiction. My characters had started talking again and before I knew it, I had another completed MS.

Still hoping my agent could find a home for my first book, I tried to find a place for my second one. After writing the dreaded query letter and synopsis, I searched for agents who represented YA fiction. Finding the ones I felt would be a good fit, I lovingly sent my baby out into the world.

When the rejection letters rolled in, I told myself these things take time. I tweaked the query and the synopsis and tried again and again.

Between the fact that my agent wasn’t having any luck in placing my first book with a publisher and I wasn’t having any luck in finding an agent for Angelina’s Secret I was getting VERY disheartened.

I was tired, frustrated, and depressed, but I think the worst part of all was the self-doubt. I kept thinking Who am I kidding? I had given both of my books my very best. It was time for me to admit that my best just wasn’t good enough. I wanted to give up, I really did, but at the same time, I couldn’t. I had worked way too hard. I owed it to myself and to my books to keep trying.

Needing a break from the querying process, I decided to enter Angelina’s Secret into a contest for unpublished YA authors. Step one required me to submit a pitch, which is very similar to a query letter. Oh yay! How I hated those things.

I strapped myself to my computer with the intention of tweaking my letter AGAIN. Looking for any excuse not to work on it, I visited query tracker. Browsing through the various topics, I found a post that said there was an author who was helping people polish their pitch letters for the up coming contest.

Still looking for excuses to not actually have to work on my letter I rushed to the author’s blog, http://thedisgruntledbear.blogspot.com/ It was true, author Kate Kaynak was helping people polish their pitch. This was way cool! A real live author was going to help me with my pitch. I gave mine another look and submitted it. I checked the blog obsessively as I waited for my turn to be critiqued.

When my turn came around, I held my breath and read her response. WHAT???? I read it again, and then again. She said if I were to submit it to Spencer Hill, she would have to ask to see the MS.

I rushed from one website to another. I learned not only was Kate an author she was also a publisher and she wanted to see my MS. It goes without saying, I immediately sent my query to Spencer Hill.



My Road To Publication Part 5

Even though I hated having to put Angelina’s Secret aside, I was super excited with the prospect of getting Our ParaNormal Lives published. After talking with my agent and exchanging several e-mails with the interested publisher, it was beginning to look as though this was truly going to happen. My dream was coming true. I was going to be a published author. All of my hard work was finally going to be rewarded. I was on top of the world—then my MS was rejected.

I. Was. Devastated.  

I took a few days to have my own private little pity party. It was private because no one in their right mind wanted to be anywhere close to me. I was mad! I had been done wrong! Very wrong! Couldn’t these people see how hard I had worked? Didn’t they care how many hours I had put in? Apparently not!

I wallowed in my self-pity. I whined. I cried. I shook my fist and yelled about the injustice of it all. Surprisingly enough, none of this made me feel any better at all. I finally consoled myself with the thought that it was their loss. Another publisher, a bigger publisher, a better publisher would read my MS and LOVE it, like it deserved to be loved.

I dried my tears and returned to my new work in progress. Apparently, my mood was so bad that even my fictional characters didn’t want to be around me. I tried to write but my characters had fallen silent. This was the same characters that just a week or so before had talked so much that I couldn’t keep up.

Not getting anywhere with my current work, my mind kept going back to the other MS—the one that SHOULD have been published. I gently tucked Angelina’s Secret back into the deep crevices of my computer and I opened the document for Our ParaNormal Lives.

I hadn’t read it in over a year and it… well… to be honest… could use some work, a lot of work. I could see why it had been rejected. The concept was good… but the writing… not so much.

I contacted my agent and did the unthinkable. I asked him to stop submitting the MS and give me the chance to make it shine.

My Road To Publication Part 4

As promised, I’m going to reveal the biggest secret I’ve ever uncovered…

Pssst lean in a little closer. Authors don’t write fiction—their characters do. If you’re not an author, I’m sure this sounds a little nuts. If you are an author, you’re probably rolling your eyes and saying UH… DUH.

Before I started writing, I had seen hints of this being true. I had heard of the writers muse and of the characters coming to life. I assumed that either this particular author was crazy or she just meant that she was such an awesome writer that her characters seemed like real people. I was WRONG.

Sitting down to write Angelina’s Secret, I had an idea of where I wanted the story to go. I didn’t however have a clear picture of how to get it there. The more I worked on it, the easier it became. Not because I was such an awesome writer, but because my characters had come to life and they told me where to take the story next. All I had to do was type. There were days I had all of them crowded around my computer telling me what to write. Sometimes I would literally call out, “Slow down. I can’t type that fast.” (It’s a good thing I usually write when I’m at home alone.)

As cool as this is, it also has its downfalls. This was after all, my story and I had a few ideas of my own, but sometimes they didn’t match the ideas of one or more of my characters. If I chose to do it my way, they quit talking and my writing came to an abrupt stop.

The first bazillion times this happened, (I guess I’m a slow learner) I would sit and stare at my computer willing the next scene to unfold. It refused. The cursor on my screen blinked, taunting me. Knowing my characters had a stronger will than I did, I’d finally give in and do it their way and the story would progress.

As much as I’d come to love my characters, I got tired of their temperamental ways. When I learned a publisher was strongly considering my first book for publication I decided to shelve Angelina’s Secret and refocus my attention on my first book. The one that I, not my characters had written.

Come back on Friday to see how this turned out for me.

My Road To Publication Part 3

Even though I hoped my agent would soon call  to tell me about an offer… he hadn't. I knew these things took time so I waited, and waited, and waited. I checked my e-mail obsessively and waited some more.

Writing the book and then going through the process of finding an agent had taken up so much of my time that now, I didn’t know what to. After a month or so of waiting, I decided it was time to start another writing project. But what?

I toyed around with a few ideas and did some research on the ideas I’d come up with. I finally chose my topic and started. I scrapped it, started another, and scrapped it too. For some reason, I just wasn’t feeling it. Back to checking my e-mail a hundred times a day and not having a clear picture of my next project in mind, my husband suggested I write a fiction book.

Fiction? No… I couldn’t. Even though I mainly read fiction, I couldn’t see myself writing it. I was a non-fiction writer. That I could do, but fiction… no… not me. With fiction, you had to be more creative. You had to make stuff up. With non-fiction, you just told a real story, in a creative way. The difference was huge.

It took some time, but the idea of writing fiction started to grow on me. My husband and I kicked a few ideas around. I liked the story line we’d come up with, but still didn’t know if I was cut out to be a fiction writer.

I finally decided to try it and see what happened. After all, I could always scrap this project too. It had to be better than staring at my inbox all day. With a skeleton of an idea for my new writing endeavor, I sat down at the computer and discovered something AMAZING.

Be sure to stop back by on Wed. and I’ll share the biggest secret I’ve ever uncovered.