Try. Fail. Try AGAIN. Learn. Repeat

J.B. Fletcher, My Mentor

The show, "Murder, She Wrote" aired in 1984, and I was excited to watch this lady mystery writer as she solved crimes. I especially loved the beginning, as the light, and bouncy tune came on, and we see Jessica at her typewriter tapping away, and in between the scenes of the show. And then she shoves her pages of type manuscript into a leather binder, and closes it with the title of the show...

I'd get a little shiver down my spine, thinking about my own writing, that it might be possible I could be successful, like this fictitious writer in a show was.

There was something about her spirit, and her ability to not bow down to those who would try and poo-poo her thoughts on a case, or when they might be trying to scare her. She didn't flinch. Well, that's not hard to believe, since she was an English teacher. Teaching anything to young students has to have its ups and downs and scary moments.

But what I liked mostly was that she was a writer. It's what I hoped to be. Well, I was already writing, but she was a successful writer. That's what I had wanted to be my entire adult life. Well, being dyslexic didn't help much. If I'd have been a retired English teacher, I don't think it would have taken me a whole lifetime to get there.

Well, now we are in the modern era. But back in the 80's and 90's, I tried to solicit my manuscripts to the correct people, agents, and even publishers. Back in the day, you could actually go straight to the publisher. My mother-in-law had a face-to-face meeting with a publisher in New York. But she didn't pursue it. I never found out the real reason why she didn't, but I could guess.

Anyway, back to me and my dilemma.  I was turned down by everyone. Only a few places here and there, if my writing had just been a little better, maybe...

My only successes came in minor things, like short stories, poems, and a few other things. Nothing earth shattering. And those few writing achievements came with a lot of sweat and tears... and not giving up.

Well, I did quit a few times, and threatened to quit permanently. My husband has been behind me keeping at it all this while. He's the only one who has believed in me all this time.

Back to the story at hand...
When I was turning 50, I knew I just didn't have it in me to try to knock on a few more doors. I won't lie to you that every rejection killed a little bit of me to the point of--well, beyond tears. My husband, God love him, was the only person who kept me at it. He would pick me up with whatever words he told me and I just didn't give up. His mother was a writer too, he knew--sort of--how much it meant to me, and how hard I worked at it.

So, at that age I did what I thought I would never do. I self-published.

Please understand, at this time, it wasn't possible to self-publish the way it's done now. I had to find a "publisher" who would take my money and work the magic and put my manuscript into print. Well, to be honest, I did all the work on getting the formatting correct for them. I was helped through the process. I also submitted a picture for the front cover. It wasn't as expensive as, say, some of the other places. $400. was what I paid to get my book published and out there. I had a couple of very successful book signings--very thrilling, since I never thought I'd see the day to not only be holding a copy of my first ever published book, but to have a book signing.

I made my $400 back and then some with the sales of my book. Yay Me!

Something like this can boost your morale, and of course I had more books in me. I went on and wrote the sequel to "Spell of the Black Unicorn", but I knew that vampires sold. I had something else burning in me and I had to write it. I went on to write (and spent a couple of years working on it, just like the last book), developing what is now the Sabrina Strong series. At first it was going to only be 3 novels. The second book was hard to write. Sequels are a dickens to write. Ask anyone. You have to keep the same momentum, make notes on what happened in the first one so you don't get tripped up in the second one, etc.

Meanwhile, I knew I wasn't going to pay to have this one published. I needed someone who didn't take my money. I found plenty of those, believe me. I had my first chapter on some site, and eventually a small publisher "discovered" me and offered to publish my book "Vampire Ascending". I read the contract, they took no money from me, and suddenly, I had a publisher. This was great! I had a great cover, and they did all the edits. I was ecstatic!

I had another even more successful book signing at the same Borders in DeKalb. 

Borders Book signing

People were walking out with two or three of my books in their arms!

I went on to publish my second book, Vampire's Trill.

I rode this train until the unfortunate demise of Borders. I already knew Barns & Dribble were not going to order my books in for people to come and buy. They were stupid. I could not get it through their thick skulls that my books would sell.
NO. I'm not going to be able to get anyone to go to your stupid store, order and pay for the book prior to the book signing. Who does that???

So, that shortened my little ride on the author train. Then, after my third novel came out--and it was like pulling teeth to get him to get it out (and the edits were horrible!), (he was in the process of putting his own second novel out, so everyone was working on that).
Then, about three months later, he decides he wants out of the publishing business. This was a blessing in disguise, I realize, of course, as I was mortified by the terrible mistakes in the third book--the damned spine had the wrong title on it!

But this forced me to become Indie. Quickly. I didn't like this. I was trying to reintroduce "Spell of the Black Unicorn", working on those edits of that book. Instead, I had to drop everything and get all three of my books out that summer--as ebooks only.

Being Indie was never in the plans. 
I'm not tech savvy. I don't have the money to pay people to do covers, formatting etc, etc. I don't even like putting the book up on Amazon. I hyperventilate waiting to see if the thing takes on my slow modem. I find all that stuff just, like--well, like dusting a shelf. Annoying. I want to do something else.

Like write.

In the four or five years since I began the Sabrina Strong series, I've written nearly 8 novels. Four are published and the fifth one is ready. But there's a pause in the action. Maybe, once again, it's meant to be...

You see, months ago I tried to get someone to do the cover for me. Take pictures of a lone gargoyle... I waited and waited. People are busy, I get that.

Finally, I get two people wanting to help me and get two sets of photos and there's even an offer to do the cover... but that didn't pan out.

Disappointment looms.

So, I'm on the last portion of edits for number five book. I'm trying to get the book cover done, and it's not happening. I was just sick of doing this by myself! What can I do?

I complain a little to my long time friend, and author, Carole Gill. After a few emails back and forth, she told me to look into her publisher. Creativa.

I did.
They sounded good. Great, actually.
I took the plunge and sent them an email. Then with their permission, sent them the file of my first book, as they requested.

It hasn't been quite a week yet, as I write this Friday evening.
I'm not nervous. I don't have any doubts. I'm more confident about the outcome than I've been in years.

I'll let you know. If this happens, there will be new covers.

Lorelei Bell's Writing Revolution

I don't know if any of you are following the Huge Howey theory of how Indie authors are making more in ebook sales than trad published authors. I've been getting a lot of the story through the blog "The Passive Voice" Here is only one of those posts about it. If you want to read up on it, go over to The Kill Zone to find a bunch of links about it--the arguments against, for, and the up-in-arms posts. People are arguing over his stats on this.
Actually I couldn't care less about what someone I've never heard of say in regards to publishing. I don't even care if his stats are right or wrong. It matters not to me.
Really. I've probably spent more years writing and being rejected than he's been alive.

But I do agree with one thing Howey says and I'm quoting from what I grabbed over at The Kill Zone with James Scott Bell. It goes like this:

“There’s no guarantee you’ll get rich from self-publishing. There’s less guarantee you’ll get rich from querying agents. My contention is this: Most people will be happier getting their works out in the wild and moving on to the next project than they will reading rejection letters.

“The real choice is that 99% of you can write a novel, pour your heart into it, and watch as every agent you query rejects the thing. And then you can give up. Feel like a failure. Walk away from your dream.

“Or you can self-publish, have the pride of having done so, hold a copy of a physical book you wrote in your hands, see your e-book up on Amazon, get a sale or two, hear from a reader, and want to write more.

“It isn’t about getting rich. It’s about having the opportunity to feel pride of accomplishment.” - Huge Howey

I'm in total agreement about this. I spent 40 years trying to do it the traditional way. I failed every time with an agent or publisher. It was a horrible wait for a horrible out-come: REJECTION! When I turned 50 and had not yet landed an agent, I said "enough". I self-published Spell of the Black Unicorn. Granted, it wasn't edited, and it needed it. And I did pay a "vanity" publisher, but their price wasn't ridiculous, and I made the money back, and a little over, but I certainly didn't get anywhere near rich on it. 

What it did was boosted my morale, I validated myself as someone who wrote a book and people LOVED it. They were readers not writers. To most of them any problems with the book's mistakes was over-looked. What they wanted was an entertaining read--which they got. And I got my reward by having a book signing at Borders (thank goodness they were 2-3 years away from closing).

While this self-pubbed writer, Huge Howey is making noise all over the place trying to--I don't know, gain more readers by being controversial (because they say that bad publicity is better than no publicity), I've already had my go-around with agents and publishers.

Before I had even written Spell of the Black Unicorn, I'd written gobs and gobs of other novels, and half-finished ones. Hey, 35 years of writing is a lot of writing. I wrote "Vampire Legacy" back in 1982-'83. I joined a writing group (which I had to travel 3 hours to), and had high hopes with it. Problem was, I was still really green. I was so green, I think the apple hadn't even developed, in fact. I had great ideas for the book, or thought I did. I had a lot of high hopes, thinking I'd get a break with writers who had already been published, and the teacher had an agent. But that wasn't to be. I couldn't keep on traveling to meet with these people every week, so had to quit. Not that it would net me any great out-come. I was just too new and needed to learn how to plot and basics of writing.

Of course since then, Spell of the Black Unicorn has been re-written/edited and now available in eBook on Amazon. And I paid not one red cent to do it, I didn't have to go through any publisher or agent. I LOVE that part!

So, where am I today? My thoughts about this "Writing Revolution" is this: It's about time we writers have a place to publish and someone isn't taking advantage of our desire to have a book out there where people can buy it, whether it's ebooks or a physical book. No matter what, when I decided to take the plunge to self-publish my first book, I had said good-bye to the query.

 I'm doing whatever I want with my books, and getting them out there for people to enjoy. I may not make a lot of money, but I'm able to get my books out there, and when someone tells me they enjoyed it, that is my reward.

When I tried to find an agent for Vampire Legacy, I thought I nearly had one. The vampire genre was really going strong, with Anne Rice's "Interview with a Vampire", and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was big on TV. She told me to cut the book in half (it was 800 pages long. Yeah. Sort of over did it. I cut it in half and tried to make some adjustments, and sent it back to her, and she decided against it, saying "vampire stories are hard to sell", and so I wasted about a half a year both working on the book and waiting for the slow response. It was/is really devastating to a person who is hopeful, and waiting for word. It's like your whole life hangs in that delicate balance. 

So, now I can say this revised version of "Vampire Legacy" renamed "Dhampir Legacy" will see the light of day, and will be published this year at some point. 

So, here it is. My rejection to all agents and publishers. I DON'T NEED YOU!

"Dear Agent. Thanks for looking at my book, but really I don't need you. I don't need you to tell me 'this isn't just right for us' or 'good luck in placing this with someone else'. No. I've had it up to my eyeballs putting up with your lame excuses as to why you don't think my book is right for you. The fact is YOU are NOT RIGHT FOR ME! \

My first self-published book is available on Amaxon