Yes, it's true! Hallelujah! Somebody likes me! Somebody likes me enough to publish me! That somebody is Immortal Works - a small press publisher out of Salt Lake City, Utah. They are the perfect fit for my debut novel and I'm so excited to take this journey with them.
So, how did I get here? And what about that agent? Don't you need one of those? Ok, so I didn't get an agent in the six months I spent querying. But after I had a long meeting with myself, I realized that my goal was to get published - and if small press was a route I could take sans-agent, then so be it. And after researching small presses, I also realized that getting to have a say in my book cover was very important to me, I liked the idea of a faster production timeline and having higher royalties ain't too shabby either.
But, back to how I got here and those six, long, depressing months of querying. Want to see my numbers?
Agent query total: 118
Full manuscript requests from agents: 5
Very close, thought I was getting an offer moments: 1
Agent offers: 0
Publisher query total: 9
Publisher full manuscript requests: 3
Publisher offers: 2
(2 offers! It was such a hard decision!)
Honorable mentions: Twitter pitch contests (I did just about all of them) and blog pitch contests
Listen, querying over 100 agents/publishers in six months was no easy task but I certainly don't regret it. Querying is a state of constantly improving your ability to summarize your book, fixing your manuscript and perfecting those 5-50 sample pages. When I finally made the choice to query publishers, I had a far better letter and manuscript to share than I did at Day 1. (you poor agents, whoever you were!)
What's next, you ask? Well, I'm moving so I should probably pack. But after that - self-editing my manuscript before I hand it off to my editor. (My editor!) I sound so fancy! Yay!
If you're in the query trenches, I feel for you. It's hard. But if you keep up with it, you just might get an agent! Or a publishing deal! Or both! But most importantly, you finished a book and that's awesome.
<3 Karin
