Keep Your Fingers Crossed!

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been working pretty hard with a... oh, what should I call him(?) ...a guy who is helping me send one of my manuscripts out to agents and publishers. -- His name is James. Let's just call him that.

My manuscript already written (and a 2011 Reader's Favorite award winner), the problem is that I am just a normal individual with no famous friends (except Darryl Markette and Holly Hartz, of course, but they are local singers) or contacts in the writing industry. Well, sort of.... Okay, I take it back. I am not normal. I am very ABnormal -- but the point here is that I am not a superstar (yet) and have no superstar contacts to help me get a publisher for my totally awesome and incredible written works.

With my first book, I found an agent pretty quickly who listed it in their database for pulishers to find. Her agency charged me some money to "prepare" a marketing letter and send it out to 6 publishers that were claimed to be hand-picked for my book. Not one of those publishers even read what I wrote. Needless to say, I am less than thrilled with the agency's service -- especially since they want more money to send out the same failed marketing letter to more publishers.

Still, I am reluctant to fire the agent I already have to look for a new one. Finding an agent is NOT easy. At least if I leave the first book listed with the agent I already have, it is in their database for publishers to possibly find. So what I decided to do is leave book #1 with its current agent while looking for a new agent and/or publisher for book #2. So I spent a little money with Reader's Favorite to get the help of one of their seasoned professionals and TODAY "we" sent out a scad of inquiry emails to agents and publishers. (After he edited it, James emailed his contacts the letter I wrote according to his form. His email was signed with my name and used my return email address.)

So far, I have heard back from 25 agents/agencies. Most of them are "out of office" messages. Some are plain rejections based on the type of book it is. One woman told me my manuscript was too short to be a book and I should submit it to magazines. (It is also too long to be a magazine article.) But TWO agents have expressed an interest in what I have written and asked to see the full version. This is VERY GOOD. I am super-excited!

Please keep your fingers crossed that at least one agent will like what they read and accept my book for representation. If I can get somebody who knows what they are doing to represent my book (any of my books will do) and sell it to a publisher, then I will no longer be SUCH a nobody that noone will read my writing. I love to write and make up stories. It is one of the few skills I have retained throughout my life, even though it was only after my husband left me that I realized I had a writing skill that was anything special. Now that I realize my writing is modestly decent, though, I really want to be able to use this newly discovered skill to positively influence a broad number of people.

Speaking of my writing.... Please check back to this blog tomorrow. I have written a little Halloween story of about 500 words that I will be posting. I would love to share it with you and I promise that it will not be quite as disjointed as tonight's entry. The title is Halloween Fire and the story was inspired by something that happened with my mother this past year. Come back tomorrow and lets see if my writing is good enough to chill your bones.

~ author Beth Durkee