Pivoting
Iwas 23 years old when I wrote my first book, 25 by the time it was releasedacross the country by a national book publisher. Ah, the good old days! Backthen, I wrote first drafts in longhand, then typed them on an IBM Selectrictypewriter, edited each page, and typed a final draft, so that everything Iwrote was replicated at least twice, sometimes three times.
Thesubmission process back then was similar in some ways to what it is now.Despite what we might see in the movies (proud, independent women marching intoeditors’ offices and plunking down weighty manuscripts with entreaties that thework be considered), the whole deal begins with a simple letter, dubbed a“query” letter, because it’s basically a question: “Hey there, I wrote thisbook about this person/thing/idea. Care to read it?”
Pre-computerage, these letters were sent off via USPS in great numbers with, of course, aself-addressed, stamped envelope (the sacred SASE) enclosed for the reply. Thenthe waiting began. Weeks, often months, sometimes years later (or never), aresponse would finally arrive: “We regret to inform you” or “Thanks for yourrecent query letter regarding blah blah blah book. However….” Or (blessedly)“Hello, Kay! I was intrigued by your idea for a book about prepared childbirth.Please send me a proposal.”
Theproposal is somewhat like a very lengthy query. In it, the writer is once againasking that the work be considered, but the first three chapters or fifty pagesare included, plus an outline of the entire book, plus, in recent years, theauthor’s marketing strategy, and the author’s bio including previous publishingcredits.
Oncethe proposal (typed and retyped on that trusty machine) was packaged up andsent out (again via USPS, again with a SASE tucked inside), the waiting wouldbegin again… weeks… months… years. No exaggeration. No kidding.
Ofcourse, if one desired to be published by one of The Big Five New YorkPublishers, one submitted queries to an agent, not the publishers themselves,as the Big Five will not take unsolicited mail from the likes of us lowlyurchins pecking away at keyboards for fun or for a living. Ahem.
Nowadays—Ojoy!—we live in the whizbang era. I can write queries on my laptop, send themout to writer friends for feedback, make changes rapidly, and email themout—for FREE! No stamps, no SASE, no waiting! Well, okay, still waiting… weeks,months, years for a reply. But at least no waiting for the mail to arrive atits destination.
[Sidenote here about the whizbang era: I once sent a short piece to the Home Forumeditor of the Christian Science Monitor (a publication which pays very nicely)to whom I had submitted successfully in the past. I sent this new essay at5:30a.m., via email. By the time I got to my day job at 7:00a.m. and turned onmy computer, the editor had responded with a short email in reply: “Hi Kay, Iread your piece over my first cup of coffee this morning and loved it. It’ll bein our October 30th issue. A check is on its way to you. Thanks forthinking of us.” Holy hot damn. That’ll make your day, won’t it?]
Idigress.
Onemore note about querying publishers or agents: In modern times, this can alsobe done by (a) spending $250-$500 or so to attend a writers conference and“pitching” one’s idea directly to an agent or publisher face-to-face (known asoffering the “elevator pitch”—in other words, if you encountered said person inan elevator, how might you quickly describe your story idea in a way thatgrabbed the listener’s interest enough to be offered a read—or (b)participating in “pitch wars” on Twitter, during which one tweets out (in 280characters or less—that’s characters, not words) a synopsis of one’sbook idea—for all the world (and hopefully an agent) to see.
Ilove writers conferences, but can no longer afford them. I am reluctant toshare my story ideas with the masses before they are in print, especially in today’sworld of I-saw-it-online-so-it-must-be-fair-game-to-copy, so neither of thoseoptions will work for me.
Allof the above is a verbose, reminiscent preface to make this short announcement(mostly as a follow-up to my post of 27 February of this year): After a gooddeal of rumination, two brief forays into the modern publishing world (duringwhich I was told the first book in my middle-grade series is “too long” for thatage group and also four books in the series is “too many” for a small press),and a couple of great conversations with two writer friends, I have decidedthat my series will be published “independently” (as we now say to avoid thesad and defeatist label of “self-published”).
Whatthis means for me:
Nowaiting.
Thefirst book will be released as soon as I can get it formatted and have a coverdesign professionally created. Booyah.
Ihave total control over the creative content; I will not need to change thetitles of the books in the series (to suit the marketing department of anypotential publisher) or the characters’ names, nor will I have to cut the booklength from 70,000 to 50,000 because “children don’t want to read long books,”as the industry believes. (I keep suggesting the so-called experts ask kids,but no one is listening to me. Again, I’m just the urchin pecking away….)
Italso means that there will be a handful of fellow writers who will shake theirheads and cluck their tongues in an exercise of group schadenfreude because “poorKay couldn’t get her kids’ books published so she did it herself.”
Sigh.It used to bother me that I didn’t get respect among my writer friends. Butseriously, if they’ve read my work (and many of them haven’t), and they don’tthink I’m “good enough” by now, I can’t help them with that. They are not thereaders I’m concerned with, anyway. The ten-year-olds who read this series canlet me know if they like the books or not. And I’m pretty sure they will (likethem, I mean—but also let me know—because that’s how ten-year-olds roll).
So:Those of you who are mentioned in the books or have become characters in oneform or another, you won’t have long to see yourselves in print. Wondering ifthat’s you? Stay tuned….
