Post Tagged with: "query letters"

And it begins

And it begins

I sent my first three queries out tonight. I realized editing and reediting and re-reediting isn’t going to get me anywhere. I’ll always want to change a word or a sentence.  If by heaven’s chance this book gets published, I’m sure it’ll be on the shelf and I’d still want things in it changed.

I signed up on querytracker.net.  I’ve researched for days. I’ve made lists. Then tonight, after a few days of not-so-good news in other parts of my life, I knew I had to DO something. Something more than changing Sending out the very first e-mail…my hand just hovered over that send button.  Because this is when it really starts.  My friends and family and peers can give me as much feedback as they can, but they aren’t the ones who need to sell this. To attach it to their career. I give literary agents a ridiculous amount of credit.  I couldn’t imagine doing what they do.

Now instead of saying, “So, I wrote this book,”  it’s now, “So, I’m trying to publish this book.”

September 27, 2012 0 comments
The Pitch

The Pitch

I haven’t been reading and reviewing, mainly because I’ve been writing. I thought I was happy with my manuscript but I went to go another “once over” and just found myself changing sentences and changing a name of a character. The one thing I have solid is the last part of my query letter. My pitch. And I’ve finally decided to share it.

Sterling throws out the halos and white wings and revisits one of the oldest rivalries in existence. Only this time, when the demons rise and the angels fall from grace, the only one left to lead the side of Good, is the girl who had all but abandoned it.

September 10, 2012 0 comments
Ta-da!

Ta-da!

The old lay out was really just…irking me.  Every time I’d go on the site I’d frown, and that’s just not cool.  I had been searching far and wide for free themes, but none had really been what I wanted…until tonight.  This is a free theme by WPZOOM who have a bunch of other stellar free themes as well as some awesome premium ones.  I didn’t do much.  Just a bit with fonts and used @font-face  for the first time (I know, where have I been, right?) to upload Sansumi onto the site (FontSquirrel rocks my socks — you all need to go check them out!).  I like it.  Well, for now at least.  Chronically Indecisive is my very long middle name.

On The Book front, the first round of editing is finished, but of course it can’t be all rainbows.  I realized after the fact that I went about it the wrong way.  I used Adobe Acrobat Pro to edit the PDF I exported so I could always go back and reference the original text was versus the edits without needing to pull up two versions side-by-side.  Sounded like a great idea, but now that I’m done with the PDF, I need to physically go in and edit the Scrivener file. I’m pretty much doing a second edit while inserting the edits for the first one.  It’s tedious, but I guess you can never edit too many times.

I’ve been putting off re-writing my query for as long as possible, but I desperately need to get that going.  I was hoping to hear back from Kat before tackling it, but I may just add her two cents in at a later date.

Until next time.

July 9, 2012 0 comments
I’m done. No, for real this time.

I’m done. No, for real this time.

Obviously I’m not done done.  It’s a book. It’s never truly done until it goes to printing.  But as for the story having a beginning, end and everything that goes in between…my book is done.  I was so determined to finish it by this past Monday but I was just stuck at the transition to the last scene.  Sometimes my imagination gets ahead of the rational part of my brain and although this is fantasy, it needs to at least make sense within the world I’ve created.  I can’t just make up something to fit my need of transition without threading into the story somehow.  I sat on the phone and talked it out with my mom who is extremely rational and logical until I had something I could work with, and between last night and tonight I finished it.

I sent it back to my mom again before I have someone else read it.  There are notes I have written down of things I need to remember to insert or see if I need to insert them or not.  I forgot being raised religious the stories from the bible aren’t second nature to most people, but I also don’t want to overkill the explanations.  Then I need to polish it.  Polish it real good.

And while I’m in the above process, I’m going to begin on my query letter.  Oh, I’m so scared.  An actor friend argued with me that getting a literary agent is like getting a talent agent.

Uh no.

I just spent close to a year writing one book and now someone needs to like THIS ONE BOOK.  A talent agent needs to like you as a person and your potential to act in any number of jobs that come across the table in the future.  No one, unless they are already known (think celebrity, tv personality, business personality), gets signed to a literary agency without a book.  A finished book.

What is this query letter I keep rambling on about?  I don’t even want to explain.  You can read more here.

Back to my hermit cave.

May 19, 2012 1 comment Read More