Friday, March 11, 2011

Taking the Plunge

Deep breath. Here we go. This is it. I've made my decision and I'm ready to move forward. I can't say I'm not a little disappointed. This wasn't the way I dreamed it would happened, but for some reason I feel it's the right way for me to go. I'm ready to send my baby out into the world for it to be torn apart, criticized and hopefully overall enjoyed.

Now that I've been so completely and annoyingly vague I guess I should get to the point of this blog and what I'm talking about. Ready for this. I'm getting ready to e-publish the first book of my Celtic Knots series. You know the one I'm talking about, right? The series that I've spent over three years writing, editing, rewriting, editing again, obsessing over, talking to anyone who would listen, editing again, bugging my wonderful friends and family to read over and over again so I could get it just right and trying so hard to get traditionally published, but not before editing at least eighty more times. Yeah that series.

So why e-publish instead of going with a traditionally publishing house? I guess the answer to that would have to be love. Yep love. I'm in love with my characters. I'm in love with my story and I love sharing the excitement of someone who is reading it for the first time wanting know what happens next. It's the best feeling ever when someone is as in love with your characters and story as you are and I want to share that experience with everyone and that's not going to happen if I keep it hidden on my hard drive waiting for my big break. I need to take action if I want to make this happen.

I'm sure if any of you know the publishing world you know how hard it is to get published. It's not like in the movies where someone writes a book, wraps it up in brown paper and twine and sends it off to be accepted or rejected. I only wish it was that easy. Now a days you have to get a literary agent in order to even submit to most publishing houses and the process of getting a respectable agent is harder than getting into the Oval Office.

I've probably written well over thirty query letters to different agents trying cater to their individual preferences. I even went to a query letter writing conference and got professional help writing one and still I came out empty handed. I did however find a very respectable publishing house, (no names to protect the innocent) who didn't require an agent. They only required the first few chapters of the manuscript to send out to their acceptance committee. I was thrilled when I was notified that their acceptance committee had accepted my manuscript with great reviews and it was on it's way to the last level of the acceptance process.

I was so excited, but three months later was told that although they loved the book they didn't have the budget to publish it at the time because they had similar genre projects lined up until 2012 and asked me to resubmit it to them again in a year or so if I didn't find someone else in the mean time.

This happened about a year ago and I was absolutely crushed at the time. I had been certain that my book would be published, but after that final blow I decided for my own sanity I needed to put it aside for a while. I had been pushing really hard trying to get it published and felt I need to take a step back and focus on other things that needed my attention.

Then recently I read on the blog of an editor from a large publishing house that you had a better chance of winning the lottery than you had of being successfully published. On the same day I also read on three other literary blog that if you aren't having luck with tradition publishing and you really believe in your work you might want to consider e-publishing. They promised it would be just as hard if not harder to be successful, but if you had a great product, the drive to work hard and did your homework it might be the way to go.

I decided at that moment to take their words as my sign to move forward. I do believe in my work. I'm ready to work hard, but most of all I want to share the love I have for great characters and wonderful story with everyone I know...and don't know for that matter!

So I am publicly announcing today that, Forbidden, the first book in my Celtic Knot Series will be released as an e-book through Amazon for $0.99. Yep you read that right. I want everyone to be able to read it without having to worry about the cost, but don't let the cost fool you it's a fun and entertaining read. If you like young adult fantasies this will be well worth your ninety nine cents.

I don't have a solid release date yet, but as soon as I do I will post it. Until then check back soon for the first sneak peek at the official cover and into the first chapter of my book, Forbidden.

4 comments:

Lily said...

So exciting!!!

Gail said...

Congratulations!!!

Jake Conrad said...

So proud of you! You rock. I will be sure to buy and read it.

Lauren said...

That's really incredible! I will be reading it for sure.