The Long and Winding Road

It's hard to believe that I'm writing these words: I've sold a book. Blue Water & Me will be published by Aberdeen Bay Press this spring. I can't tell you how excited I am, but I can tell you about the long and tortuous road it has taken me to get here.

            I had a major operation in December of 2003. While I was recovering I decided to write that book that I had been meaning to pen for over twenty years.

            The story flowed from my fingers. Something magical happened. I wasn't thinking up this stuff, it just came out on its own.

            I was consumed with writing. Every spare minute (and some time at work) went into my masterpiece. It only took me about three months to get to the end. "What's so hard about this writing business?" I thought, rather proud of myself.

            Then a little voice nagged at the back of my head.

            Was this book really good enough to publish? Would anyone want to read it? I did some research and found a free-agent editor here in Seattle to take a look at it. It cost me about $1200.

            After reading my baby, she sat down with me and explained the harsh reality of life.

            "What you have here is three stories. They're all good stories, but you can only tell one in this book. Chose the one you like the best and save the other two for later."

            She gave me pages of edits she suggested. I was hopeful but crushed.

            Back to the drawing board. After a year of edits and re-writes, I presented my editor with a new version.

            "I can see this book in book stores," she said. "It will be on end-cap displays for Father's Day and Christmas." Then she went on to give me more pages of edits and things I needed to fix.

            The second round of edits only cost me $800. (The prices have gone up since then.)

            After another year of edits, changes and corrections, I decided to take my book to market.

            I read all the books I could get my hands on about querying agents and finding a publisher. I found The Shortest Distance Between You and a Published Book by Susan Page. I followed her instructions implicitly. (What she didn't say was that the shortest distance for me was going to take six years.)

            One of her steps was to get published authors to endorse you book before you submitted it to agents. I did. I sent out about twenty letters to authors asking for endorsements and surprisingly, three of them gave me endorsements.

            I used the best of the three for my opening paragraph in my query letter and told the agent that authors A and B had also written me endorsements.

            Something worked right. I pitched my book at the PNWA Summer Conference and had several more agents ask to see the manuscript. The first agent that read the manuscript signed me on as a client. Then he worked his tail off to sell the book.

            He pitched it to every major publishing house in New York. He pitched it to several movie studios. He even tried to sell it as a YA book.

            He did get one major publisher to put it on their list of possible titles. The publishing house meets with Barnes & Noble every six months to pitch their new titles. B&N turned my book down, so the publisher dropped it.

            Finally, my agent had to tell me "We're just going to have to put this on the back burner."

            I went on to write what I considered more saleable commercial fiction. I didn't sell any of that either.

            Fast forward six years. I am at the Write on the Sound conference in Edmonds Washington. One presenter had a book that was similar to mine, published by Aberdeen Bay Press. "OK," I thought. "I'll give it another try." I sent a submission for Blue Water & Me to Aberdeen Bay Press. I didn't hear back from them.

            Time marched on. A year later I got an e-mail from the acquisition editor at Aberdeen Bay Press. My manuscript had finally emerged from the slush pile. They loved it.

            It has taken over a year from the time they said they loved my book until I got final word that it was going to press. It has been long and frustrating, but it will finally see print.

            Now the real work begins. Writing and selling your book is about 50% of the process. The other 50% is marketing the book. Presuming you want to have good sales, you much work your rear end off to sell it.

            I start that process tomorrow. I'll try to update the Legion of the Plume blog with our ideas and successes for anyone else in the same situation to follow. Keep reading . . .