So, today felt rough for the publishing journey, but it also gave me a solid bit of hope for Blood Blooms (now retitled Scars & Honey). This is the one with the character Amund, who I'm constantly referring to as half lost-love, half alter-ego.
If you are unfamiliar with the publishing world, here's a basic run down of how it works, and my update thus far:
Phase 1) Write The Thing A writer writes a book. Simple, right? Well, most books that writers start are never finished. Ask anyone who's ever participated in a writing marathon like Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month), a competition, or a writing class—getting to "the end" is harder than it seems. If a writer is lucky, they might have a critique partner (CP) or alpha reader who will look at the very first of first drafts and help find plot holes and/or character dynamics to shift before moving to phase 2. For me, I was fortunate enough to find Dave Larson and Christina Swanton, among others, with the San Diego Writers Meetup Group, which ties into this next section in regards to this particular project.
Phase 2) The Beta A writer rewrites the book. A writing group composed of writers helps polish what might have odd edges and poor dynamics on the page. Most readers who are not writers don't care about these sorts of things, so getting a writer's eyes on the work is crucial to not being torn apart later by higher ups in the process. For me personally, working with modern writers opened my eyes to things I never considered because I am familiar with technical writing and professional correspondence—things fiction writers have totally different rules for. I didn't know we did away with the double-space-after-a-period thing. I'd never used a proper em-dash in my life. I'd never known you could auto-indent a document, and always used tabs. I type very quickly and cleanly, grammatically have very nice structure, but learned things about prose and better structure than I could have ever purchased with a class. I just had to put my work to the test and deal with it.
Needless to say, this led to many, many tears and screams that I'd never be good enough. But I kept at it. I rewrote my story three times before getting to this phase. Most writers will tell you this is the point in which they engaged with beta readers. Like beta testers for software and programming, beta readers are "testing" your narrative, characters, story structure and even writing style. Some beta readers will eat up the book and adore every bit. Some will rip you apart and make you want to burn the manuscript. And some, like Adelaine L. Kluger, also a great writer, will give you just enough of both to keep you kicking.
For me, Phase 2 is where I met Dennis Hobart Giles, and I hired my editor for a developmental edit months down the line. And oh man...am I glad I still had months to prepare even though I thought I was "done" with revising.
Phase 3) Editing - On Your Own Here is where writers rewrite their book again after beta feedback. Feels exhausting, right? I went from third person omniscient present tense to four distinct first-person past tense POVs between draft 1 of Blood Blooms and its current form. The changes to the narrative were also astounding. Anybody out there remember when Max had tarantulas? When Ky and Amund danced at the club and Ky put on eyeliner? Anybody ever get to see Max and Amund having a cooking battle? These are scenes that didn't make the final cut. Some didn't even make the first cut I sent out to Alpha reader, Dennis! But they still exist in my heart and my head, and in a document three times as big as the final book.
At this point, I engaged with MORE beta readers after my final rewrite, hired two professional editors for "manuscript evaluations" (read: professional beta reads) and at this point, I stopped getting repetitive feedback of things that needed to be fixed. Instead, I got a lot of praise. It wasn't like the earliest betas who were being nice because it was a hot mess - this was genuine. They wanted more. They asked for more detail in a few chapters, but my final four official betas said, "If you make no changes, I would buy this book off the shelf and not know the difference. I loved it." This gave me hope that I might have a product worth putting out there for that really, REALLY expensive full editor I had hired six months prior. Sending the manuscript to the editor was f*ing TERRIFYING. I was about to pay someone to tear my baby apart. I was fully expecting to get it back and cry for days before picking myself up again.
Instead, as she read it, she reached out on social media (and I followed here on social media for 8 months - she didn't reach out to any other authors for projects she was working on, that I saw). She told me she couldn't put it down and commented when she thought things worked very well. Her final evaluation of my manuscript was solid. The amount of changes needed were so minimal, I didn't shed a tear. I was so glad I spent time from when I first hired her to when I submitted completely fixing things. She broke down every POV and how many words I'd allocated for each one, and had an even spread. I sent her my "Save the Cat" spreadsheet of story beats and indicated where each one was - it flowed well, and didn't have the anticipated issues with pacing that she predicted when first looking at my (complete mess of a) story.
Fortunately for me, I have a certificate in copy editing. While my work is not completely error-free and I am blind to some mistakes, my writing's pretty clean. It's by far the most common comment on my work from first-time readers. Some writers at this point will hire a copyeditor before the next phase, but that's a personal choice and may be dependent on what route they choose.
Phase 4) To Query or Not To Query? Here's where things get sticky with publishing, because many writers may get to this point and decide the hassle of querying their work for traditional publication isn't worth it. They may choose to hire an artist, commission a cover, and self-publish their work with their own marketing prowess. There is nothing at all wrong with this approach! Many are very successful with it. For my first time out of the gate with a project that wasn't Loki fanfiction, I decided to give a crack to querying.
I have been querying this book (read: begging for representation) since November of 2021. Most of these queries have gone to literary agents, which stand as the first gatekeepers to traditional publishing, for the most part. A literary agent may like your query letter (which is like a cover letter for a job interview) and ask to read some or more material. This is what a querying author wants - requests for more pages. A full request is seen as hitting the ball out of the park. The question is, will the agent come back with an offer, an ask for revisions, or nothing at all?
Most query letters go unanswered. This leads to a lot of uncertainty and flat-out frustration as a writer. The responses one does get are often form letters that give no feedback whatsoever on what worked and what didn't. Writers will query in batches with letters and samples of writing that gets played with and rearranged to see what works. These letters are also meant to be personalized, so you can't just send a batch of twenty letters out that are exactly the same. It's time-consuming and nervewracking, especially if you accidentally send a query letter with somebody else's personalization in it (hence why I do not recommend querying at 2 AM because that just happens to be when the baby fell asleep. Not that I've done that or anything. Teehee.)
If an agent does pick up the work and offer representation, it is then the agent's job to take it on submission to publishers directly. The big publishers you are probably familiar with (places like MacMillan, Penguin/Random House, Harper Collins) don't take submissions directly from authors at all, with very few exceptions.
Some authors like myself also decide to query small independent publishers who take submissions from writers directly. Independent publishers are not vanity publishers, which are places who *you* pay to get your work out there. Independent publishers may pay you for your work, it might be a small amount, but they are also gatekeepers and have say in what your product should look like and how it should be marketed. They know what sells, where, and to whom. It's just as nervewracking to submit to publishers as it does to agents, but I've found this has worked better in my case.
I received a full request (remember, this is the goal!) from an independent publisher who I'm familiar with in regards to their nonfiction titles, many of which I love because nonfiction is my jam. Their fiction imprint wasn't taking submissions directly from authors unless the story slanted heavily toward diverse representation—which my story has. As a shot in the dark, I sent off a query letter and synopsis to the editor of that imprint, not expecting to hear anything at all...four days later, I had a full request. I'm still waiting on that one, and will be waiting until the first week of May for the 12 week turnaround as I was advised. Fingers are tightly crossed, as I'd love to be here!
I also received a full request two weeks ago from another indie publisher. They responded the next day. I'm not certain how I feel about this house because of their cover art in general—I'd like something more eye-catching than what I've seen from them—but it's still a full, still worth celebrating!
There are many indie publishing houses I have waiting in the wings, and many who refuse to take submissions for things that are being considered elsewhere (something called a simultaneous submission). These are at the bottom of my list, because I don't want to pull any current opportunities just to submit for a maybe.
Well, here's where I am today. I submitted Bloom Blooms to another publishing house that shares my maiden name, and it felt like an excellent fit. I was VERY excited to find them because they specialize in LGBTQ lit, which fits the bill for most of what I've created so far (for reasons I am still trying to figure out, tbh). A month went by. Then two. I was told to expect a receipt of delivery and never did, so I nudged, then nudged again. I gave up about three weeks ago, figuring I had been ghosted, which broke my heart but right now—that's the name of the publishing game.
I heard from them this morning in a very nice email. Not surprising to anyone, it was a rejection, but not what I thought. They said they were rejecting the story because they didn't think they had the resources to give it the attention it needed. My story is not romantic fluff that's accessible to everyone, it's a pretty heavy drama, called Literary Fiction. Lit Fics, especially in the "New Adult" space (characters 21-35ish) is difficult to market, especially for debut authors, which I am. They didn't have anything against the word count or content at all. In fact, this is what they said:
"We do want to reiterate that the sample from your manuscript was solid, intriguing, and quickly hooked the reader. We didn't have feedback for improvement, which is rare. Hopefully, you will quickly find a publisher or agency with the resources to take Blood Blooms to realize its potential."
So yes, I was rejected. But I feel good, because they DIDN'T tell me they gave up on the third paragraph like the agent who "helped" me get a query package ready. They didn't tell me they couldn't understand the use of figurative language. They didn't tell me to give up and keep my day job. They said all the right things, and I still have full requests out.
So take pity on your writer friend. Asking for rejection every day is HARD. And at the end of this journey, I may end up shelving Blood Blooms, and hoping something else I write gets published so I can try this again when I'm not "debut" and my name has more clout. That would hurt, REALLY hurt, but I would do it for Amund if I had to, because I don't have enough faith in my own abilities to do him justice on my own.
But what I do have is faith that those pages - they did what I wanted. That's all I can say.
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