Like most writers, I always dreamed of being published. Sadly, I’ve had this dream probably longer than some of you reading this blog have been alive. Acckkkk!
Way back in the ancient past, so ancient they barely had paper and pens (kidding), I wrote a bunch of stories long hand. Does anyone even know how to write long hand anymore? I hear they are not even teaching cursive writing in school anymore. Sad, very sad. Everyone should at least be able to write their names so they can sign checks.
Oh. Right. I forgot. Nobody writes checks anymore, including me. Anyway, back to the topic, I wrote some stuff, kid stuff, and got nothing for my efforts except for a permanent callous on my index finger. I didn’t really write anything again until the invention of the computer and word processing. And to think I didn’t take typing in high school because I didn’t think I’d need it.
So there I was, with a computer and an imagination, cranking out stories that nobody read that I desperately wanted someone other than me to read. So I joined a writers’ group. Then I joined a critique group—which can be very painful to one’s ego—and then I started trying to get published.
Back then, I had to have archaic things like stamps and envelopes and the Post Office to send in my three chapters (yes, people, most publishers only want three chapters to start with. ☹). Even then it was kind of a stab in the dark because this thing called the internet? Barely existed. But there were these other things called….take a deep breath….books! where I could look up agents’ and publishers’ names and addresses and what they accepted.
I’d trudge to the Post Office, stamped envelope in hand and drop it into the that big mail slot for oversized packages. Then I’d sit back and wait. And wait. And wait. Sometimes I’ve get a nice form letter back saying blah, blah, blah thanks but no thanks, sometimes I got nothing. But, you know, hope springs eternal, and the internet became the internet as we know it and suddenly I could look up information online and send in my submissions online too. Hooray for technology….mostly. (If you’ve read my previous blogs, you’ll know that I hate social media.)
So I was all set to start submitting…. Then life got in the way.
Then life got in the way again.
Then again.
And it was fifteen years before I got serious and tried again. But boy, has the industry changed. It appears that I have to like social media because it’s an important part of getting my book out there which is why I hired someone to pretend to be me and social media for me (see my blog Help! I’m a social media dinosaur)
Anyway, I had this one book that I really liked so I sent it out to a bunch of agents and publishers. Sadly I got lots of noes (if you are going to try to publish, be prepared for lots of noes). I had this other book The Candy Capers that I sent to two publishers, just on a whim, and holy cow, one of them said yes.
So as of today, I AM A PUBLISHED AUTHOR! Now I just need to sell a few books so I can pay my social media person who is in charge of promoting my book so that I sell more than the three my family bought.
So please, pretty please, read my book.
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