Letting Go.
View all responses“A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay Poet 1892-1950
When you have spent years learning how to write to be published. Then spent as many years suffering rejection after rejection on not just one book, but two. You reach a point way you feel like giving up, and can’t be bothered to write down any more submission details because you know you’re going to mark it REJECTED in capital letters yet again. So you convince yourself that now is a good time to focus on writing short stories because you’re no good at writing novels.
Yes, I could have said goodbye to rejection. Made it easier on my heart and soul by being published sooner. Taking the self-published route wasn’t the one I wanted to travel as an author. I needed to have validation from someone who didn’t know me personally, someone who read the submission, and believed it was good enough to invest both time and money into it.
Stone Angels was my third attempt at becoming a published author. The book was born out of a short story that was the overall winner in a writing competition. I knew from that win that I had the potential to become an author, but could I write a book good enough to be published.
Finally, the day came when I submitted my novel once again. It was a nervous goodbye and good luck. Click and it was gone.
When I received the acceptance for Stone Angels the anxiety really kicked in. After waiting for so long, I believed the excitement would override my nerves, but when the editing process started, I began to worry again. The next hurdle was the book launch. Would anyone buy it? If they did, would they like it?
Click here to find out details of all three of my novels It was tough saying goodbye to my first novel. Launched during the beginning of the Covid lockdowns, so no big party to celebrate Stone Angels‘ release into the world. It was a case of sitting back and waiting to see whether the reviews would be good or bad.
Luckily, Stone Angels is selling well. Of course, I would love to sell hundreds even thousands, but as I’ve only been published since 2020 it takes time to build a readership. Once I have more books published, readers will hunt out my back catalogue.
After Stone Angels was published, the publisher went on to publish my first two novels. If you do check out my books. Thank you.
Thank you for reading my post, and leaving a comment.
Stay safe, and keep smiling.
