My Path to Publication

Rob Kelley here, and finally, at long last, after years, I’m about to be a published author. Raven releases from High Frequency Press on October 28, 2025 in paperback and ePub (and later in November as an audiobook on Audible).

I wanted to share this story because I needed to hear ones like it during the long years it took to get here. Publication–getting your work out into the world–can seem like an infinitely receding horizon.

I know many people say they want to write books, and we’ve all heard and shared advice like “write every day,” “butt in chair,” and “you can’t edit what you haven’t written,” platitudes that rarely, at least for me, make writing easier. What has made writing easier, perhaps ironically, is more writing. My rough estimate is that the final thriller version of the book (it had its origins as SF!) underwent around 50 full revisions. Yikes!

I’d drafted early versions of the book almost 20 years ago, but only decided to take my writing seriously about 10 years ago. I started reading with purpose, making notes on other thrillers I read, and calling out techniques I wanted to emulate. I outlined books I admired to understand their structure. I started going to conferences–Maine Crime Wave, New England Crime Bake, Muse and the Marketplace, and ThrillerFest. I took classes online and in person, including from Stanford’s online catalog and Master Classes with D.P. Lyle, and our own Gayle Lynds and Chris Holm.

Then, when I thought I had the novel ready to go in 2019, I started looking for an agent. I pitched over 50. Some asked for pages, some for the full manuscript. No one took me on. So, I put the book down for a bit.

I worked on other projects (which have since become my next several books), continued attending writing conferences and taking classes, and eventually felt ready to pick the novel back up and get serious about improving it. It turns out there’s kill your darlings then there’s something more akin to mass murder. I was absolutely ruthless about improving the plot, the prose, the characters, and the voice.

In May 2023, I’d signed up for The Writer’s Hotel, the “mini MFA” conference that was now being held in Maine after moving from NYC. As part of acceptance to that conference I got a full MS read by the conference leads, authors Shanna McNair and Scott Wolven. As it turned out, I was only 42,000 words into my murderous revision at that moment, so I sent them that excerpt. And learned that I was not being murderous enough. Scott and Shanna did a level of editorial review that outstripped what I’d done for myself, down to word frequency and distribution. Double yikes!

I spent the summer editing hard and by fall of 2023 thought I was ready to resubmit to agents. I’d gone to ThrillerFest that summer and pitched in the speed dating PitchFest, I’d met a few agents through a program after The Writer’s Hotel. I also had my list of agents I’d pitched unsuccessfully, some sourced through prior ThrillerFest and Crime Bake “speed dating” pitches as well as research on Publishers Marketplace.

I sent it out to 12 agents who had expressed prior interest even if they hadn’t taken the earlier version and waited. But not for long. 10 days later I get an email from Shanna McNair that she and Scott Wolven had founded a press, High Frequency Press, and asked if I would be one of their inaugural writers. I politely withdrew my agent queries and received one reply from an agent who was clearly ready to take me on and asked to keep in touch. (I made a note of that!)

After many rounds of edits and various additional darlings killings, I come to this month, when Raven will launch. What I would have told my 10 and 20 years ago self is that it will be a slog. And that it will be worth it.

Currently reading: Murderland, Caroline Fraser, 2025,
and Transcription, Kate Atkinson, 2018

Next from my TBR list: The Glass Eel, J. J. Viertel, 2025