Mood:
caffeinatedNow Playing: Daughtry
The theme of my blog has always been my adventures in the writing/publishing world. My first series of books, "Destination: Berlin," "All That Remains," "Are Your Dirty Little Secrets," "Across the Fickle Winds of History," and "The Wolf's Torment," have been self-published. I don't mind being a self published author, but it does require hard wor to market and quite honestly, as a working mother, it's hard to do it. I've got to balance a full time job, being a full time mother, and my own writing projects. That said, I've always wanted to break into traditional publishing.
Traditional publishing offers help. With an advance, my writing will help to pay itself off. An agent helps me to get a publishing contract. The book will recieve help with publicity and marketing. My current project I'm working on, the novel version of "THE WOLF'S KISS," (a paranormal romance) is a project I feel strongly about that can help me break into the traditional market. Back on 7 March, I quiered about 5 agents to see what they had to say.
Here's an update on those queries:
I’ve gotten 3 replies back to my queries so far:
Helen Breiwieser - I received a photocopy letter saying they weren’t taking on any more new clients, but check with AAR for another agent.
Jennifer Jackson - I received a letter with an authethic signature saying the project just didn’t appeal to her.
Jessica Faust - I receieved a letter with an authentic signature saying the project just didn’t appeal to her.
I was curious. Why? Obviously my opening didn’t "grab" them. I couldn’t figure it out. Then my good friend, Debbie Tinker, switched to day watch (at work) and I knew she wouldn’t mind reading my story. I let her look at it and her feedback was invaluable.
Debbie said she didn’t understand the whole "mysterious stranger" thing. Why didn’t he just say who he was, she asked? Why make a big mystery out of it. Why was Matthias at Lord Archibald’s in the first place? Why did he stay for the ball?
Well, hell - I guess my attempts to build mystery fell FLAT so I retooled the opening, (there’s now a NEW verison that outdates the one I’ve posted! 
) identifiying Matthias as Count Duma, explaining he was there on a business trip, and that after seeing Katherine, he decided to stay for the ball. I think it smoothes out the bumps of the opening. I’m on vacation now, but I’ll let Debbie look at it again next week to see if it works.
That said, I’ll be identifying 5 more agents to query soon. As soon as I do, I’ll put the list up.
To help me establish writing credits, I've been entering the WRITER'S DIGEST competations over the past couple of years.
Right now, I’m working on putting together my entries for the Writer’s Digest 2008 77th Annual Competition. I’m going to submit 4 entries and I might submit a 5th, I’m still wavering on that. Here’s my entries:
THE BURKHART BEAVERS - a children’s story about a family of beavers where the boys learn to share.
SPONTANEOUS DECISION - a mainstream entry about a 911 dispatcher.
THE WATCH TOWER - a genre fiction entry about Bran castle and the legends surrounding it.
A TIME AND PLACE - a genre fiction entry, romance, about two young lovers in Canada in the 1930’s.
With my honorable mentions, I have a couple more writing credits under my belt which I can add to my query letters. Every little bit helps.
Hope you're off to a good month. I'll be posting my newsletter soon. Check out my messageboard for my April/May contest.
