Publishing, Part IV

It's sad how the fear of failure can keep us from following our dreams.  As school was letting out in May of 2012, I had just bought a new Writer's Market book and sat down at the table to start doing some research.  Simply getting to that point was not so easy.

In all the years I had been writing, I had tested the market a few times.  All said I had probably sent out a couple hundred queries and book proposals, most of them meeting with impersonal rejections.  The rest of them garnered no responses despite the fact that I had provided each with self-addressed, stamped return envelopes.  I figure there must be a staff member at most publishing houses whose job it is to gently peel stamps off of the return envelopes of sucky writers for future use. 

Anyways, I had gotten used to the idea of rejection, and even started doing the math.  If an average publisher receives 500 queries a year and publishes 10 books, the odds aren't exactly in my favor.  I was pretty sure I could write a decent elevator pitch at this point and was even pretty marketable, especially with a decent readership through my newspaper articles.  Still, I was pretty psyched out.  Deep inside I told myself that if I didn't submit, there would still be hope.

Still, my wife kept at me to submit my work.  Every now and then I would tell her my newest idea for a book and instead of a, "That sounds promising," I always received, "Why don't you try to find a publisher for the five books you have now?"  And I knew she was right.  It was time to stop being such a coward and play another hand.

This time, instead of taking the easy way out and spending as little time as possible, I spent the last week in may and the first few weeks of June pouring over all the publishers, highlighting the ones I deemed to be a good fit, and writing remarks in the margins for later.  I identified 50 publishers for 3 of my books.  Of the other two, one wasn't quite ready, and the other one I just plain don't like.  Most of the publishers I sought were for my Christian young adult novel, The Mentor.  The Mentor was my 2nd book, and the one I liked the best.  I knew I was running out of time on it though because one of the characters was a WWII vet, and unfortunately the "Greatest Generation" is getting to be of an age where there just aren't many left anymore.

Instead of taking the easy way out, I checked out each publisher's website for any insights/clues they might want to share.  I found that many printed things on their websites that directly contrasted what was printed in Writer's Market, so I sent out e-mails, received responses, then crafted a plan for each publisher.  Some were as easy as sending a query as an e-mail attachment.  Others had online forms to fill out.  Still some asked for the works, all to be snail mailed.  This is how I spent the last five weeks of summer vacation.  For each submission, I would write down the publisher, date, and important information like what I sent, how I sent it, and how long it usually took to hear back.  Without this master list, it would be impossible to remember who I sent what, and when.

Some publishers I looked at and said something to the effect of, "Well, such-and-such novel sort of fits into this category.  If I craft the query to say what they are wanting to hear, maybe they will pick it."  Many were pretty good fits, but of all the publishers, there were about five I deemed to be the perfect fit.  Martin Sisters Publishing was one of them (http://www.martinsisterspublishing.com/.) 

So I waited.  Some of the e-mail queries came back immediately with rejections, to which I would go to my master list and mark them off with an unhappy face.  Here I see it important to say that in all of the years I had sent stuff off, ALL I HAD EVER RECEIVED IN RETURN WERE IMPERSONAL FORM LETTERS.  Then mid-September one publisher gave me some hope.  In this rejection letter I was greeted by name, which seldom happened.  The editor went into two very-specific paragraphs, explaining how the fantasy novel I sent (not the one I am getting published) was sub-standard.  I was elated!  Finally somebody was giving me something to chew on.  I was so impressed that I used it as a teachable moment in class. 

In fact, I was about to rock-and-roll with the changes the editor suggested to the novel when I got the e-mail for which I had been waiting fifteen years.  The whole thing went down in a week full of butterflies that led to me signing a contract on Halloween.  What a memorable day that was.

Since that day there haven't been many moments when I wasn't thinking about my novel.  There has been endless work, first with sending in forms that included a biography, back cover blurb, contact information, and you name it.  This is in addition to revising the novel one last time then totally unformatting it to the editor's liking.  That took twenty hours total by itself!

Now, for the first time since all of this has happened, I have had a chance to breathe.  My wife and I have been talking about marketing ideas, and there's plenty of online creation to be done like creating an official website, facebook fan page, and twitter.  All of it is a bit overwhelming, and I've had to take it a day at a time, but something I found the other day reminds me what I should be thinking through this process. 

I was unpacking my Christmas fantasy village and I found a note I had left to myself from last year.  I don't remember writing it, but it is very appropriate.  It runs, "Man, I love Christmas time!  Enjoy every minute of December."  Just as those words are going to inspire me to enjoy the whole Christmas season, from the day after Thanksgiving (who am I kidding?  I've been listening to Christmas CD's since the day after Halloween!) until I put the tree back in the attic, they are also going to serve as a reminder for me to enjoy this process of publishing from signing the contract to the day the book launches, because who knows if it will happen again.  I guess only time will tell.