on Jul 12th, 2009The Forked Road
I hate to admit it, even to myself, but now the easy part is over. The book, such as it is, is written (analogous to being pregnant and giving birth); now comes the hard part (raising the off-spring and sending him/her off into the world). Disclaimer: I’ve never had a child, so this is entire a figment of my imagination and readings. I’m envisioning the necessary steps as follows.
- Final revisions
- Finding an agent
- Finding a publisher
- Self-marketing
The scary part is that all of these have to happen somewhat concurrently – or would in that perfect world I don’t inhabit.
I decided to concentrate on revisions and self-marketing at first since, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit I made the inevitable newbie mistake and sending out my MS “before its time.” This resulted in a serious of rejections. Not unexpected, but painful nonetheless, particularly since I “wasted” several of my A-list targeted agents in this ill-advised activity. I’m still debating the resubmission issue…more about that later.
So here’s my two-pronged plan.
Prong A. – Revisions. I’m going to take the 10-step approach recommended by many (published) authors. Sounds like I may need Bill W.’s more famous 12-steps by the end, but we’ll see.
Prong B. – self-marketing. This is going to be the painful one. I already have a website and a blog (duh, you’re reading it, right?), but it’s not as professional as I’d like. And as for social networking…let’s just say that’s outside my comfort zone.
Over the next several weeks, I’ll be keeping you up to date on my efforts, successes and failures. Going against character, I’m optimistic (or maybe delusional) on the ratios.
Keep your fingers crossed. And, as always, comments, suggestions, and moral support are welcome and greatly appreciated. So are chocolate chip cookies…