Sharon Dow

Sometimes it’s hard to be totally honest. We want to show people the best about ourselves. We want to be perceived as successful all the time. I shared with friends last night that I was the child who in school always had to have my work completed first and it had to be all right, otherwise it did not meet my standards! That’s a heavy burden for a child.

Have I changed much? Probably not. But hopefully I have matured to the point where I can accept that I’m not always first and I’m not always right.

As I waited for word from the publishing company, the one that had found my book proposal online and was interested in my work, I imagined a multitude of scenarios. Yes, of course they would accept my book: they were the ones who had found it and expressed interest. Well maybe they wouldn’t like it once they saw the whole manuscript. Maybe they would tell me that I had a bestseller on my hands. Maybe they would say give up, you’re not going anywhere. Who could tell?

The email arrived: was this the end or the beginning? Let me quote again: We have completed the evaluation of your manuscript. You do have a strong concept, and there is significant potential for this to be a very good book. But unfortunately . . . They went on to suggest I have an evaluation done on the manuscript with one of their editors and then re-submit it to them for consideration.

Now what? I was disappointed for a moment but then my determination kicked in (my mother had another name for my determination: stubbornness). But I now had caught the bug. I wanted this book published. I wanted it published by this company. Once again I held on to their words of encouragement: strong concept, significant potential . . . very good book . . . I signed up for the evaluation.

Now began the remarkable journey. The editor, Susan, is one of the best in the field. Under her careful guidance, my manuscript began to come to life. I could see the changes making a difference. She was incredibly encouraging as we worked our way through.

I tackled the revision with joy. This was going to work! I just read on someone’s face book this morning that talent is spelled W O R K. If this is true, and I believe it is, then I would work.

Isn’t that true in all of life? If something is worth doing or having, it’s worth working to achieve. When things don’t work out the way we had hoped, we have a few options: we can give up and blame someone else: or we can re-evaluate, decide it’s worth it, and get going.

I chose to ‘get going’ and I’m so glad I did, because the silver lining was just around the corner! Next week I’ll bring you ‘The Silver Lining!!’

Writing is certainly a journey. It begins with a desire in your heart followed by a thought in your mind. The thoughts pile up and spill onto your page. Once you have emptied your mind of the river of thoughts: your book is done, right? Wrong! The work now begins.

So I’m sitting with my critiqued section of manuscript, but no publisher. I began to check out Publishing Houses online. While on several sites, I discovered that the big publishing houses refuse to take manuscripts from new authors. On one I was instructed to not send it in as it would not even be read.

How then can a new author get started? I knew there must be a way because new authors appear on the market on a regular basis. I was becoming frustrated when I landed on the Bethany House website. They also don’t accept new work, but they directed me to a site called Christian Manuscript Submissions. This is a site where, for a fee, you can post a book proposal consisting of a tentative title, category topic, potential market, similar books, promotion ideas, summary of your book, table of contents, and two or three chapters of your manuscript. Many publishing houses use this site to find new authors. In fact, their websites stated that they would only consider manuscripts that were posted on this type of site.

We discussed this and decided this was the route for me to pursue. I had gathered information about self-publishing but wanted to save that as a last resort. For me; I wanted the advice and criticism of an editor, the cover designed by a professional, marketing done by a professional and promoted to a wide market, etc.

Many of the things this site required, I had already done when I had sent my work in to the first publisher. It was only a matter of adding a few things and making a few changes here and there. I had it ready in a few days and emailed it in. Now to wait again. I had a six month window to leave my work on the site. If a publisher was interested, they would contact me.

Within a couple of weeks I had an email stating that a publishing company was interested in my work! I was so excited. But there is always a catch. This company was a full publishing company; editors, cover designers, promoters of books to all the major book stores in Canada, the US, and Great Britain. The catch? It is a Partnership Publishing company which means that I, as the author, would need to purchase the first 1,000 copies and sell them myself.

Could I do this? We began to brainstorm ideas of how to promote my book without going to bookstores which is not permissible as the Publisher does that. I was amazed that in a few days, we had come up with several ideas. I emailed back that I was interested.

Now the process would start again. I would be submitting the entire manuscript this time and then the wait for the decision would begin. At this point they had only seen a small portion of my work. Would they feel it was good enough to publish?

Well, that lesson in patience was about to be put into effect again. Maybe I was a slow learner and had to have the lesson repeated over and over. Whatever the reason, the wait began again.

This time I was waiting for a long envelope to arrive via mail. The wait seemed long. Isn’t that always the way; we don’t like to wait. We live in an ‘on demand’ society. But again there are lessons to be learned in waiting. Apparently patience was one of the things I needed to learn.

One day when I wasn’t even thinking about it, it arrived. Now I sat holding the future in my hands. Would there be encouragement or only criticism? It was like receiving university marks by mail. I’d done my best, but was it enough?

Five typed pages greeted me when I at last opened the envelope. I decided to read each word as I came to it and not jump ahead. The critique was very detailed and very useful. The criticisms listed made sense to me and I could see where I would be able to make my book much stronger.

At last I arrived at the ‘Potential’ section. I was most interested in this. It would decide the fate of my manuscript. If they felt it had no potential; there was not much hope. Let me quote some of their comments:

            “This is a good story, better than many that publishers see and could have a good chance at being accepted for publication.”

            “The story is a good one . . . publishers will be able to see the strong plot of the story and the good characterization provided by the author.”

That was enough for me. It was a green light to continue. Now I just needed a publisher!

Where to begin? How would I find a publisher? That in itself was a journey. In my next blog, I’ll take you on that journey.