Sep 6, 2009

My Journey so Far

     This blogging is going to take some getting used to! As you will see, I am a random writer; depending on my mood, I can be as poetic as I was yesterday and then suddenly break out in slang... y'know what I'm sayin'? This is good for creating character voices, not so good for blogging. I'm going to have to find my middle ground....
     Anyway, as I said in my last post, I am in the process of publishing a book I have written. I can't give too many details about the book on this blog, for the obvious reason that they could be stolen. I'm sure you can understand why that would be a bad thing. I can say that it is Christian sci-fi/fantasy, and I guess the age group would be teens, although I think it is good for any age. The book stands at approximately 300 pages and over 100,000 words. I am in the process of the final editing, but the numbers shouldn't change drastically.
     So, where am I in the publishing process? Well, in between editing, I am searching for an agent. In order to be recognized by any large publisher, you have to have an agent. If you send in a manuscript just out of the blue, they will not even look at it. But finding an agent is almost as difficult as finding a publisher. Agents are besieged by author wannabes, and finding the right manuscript is like looking for that old needle in a haystack. But if the needle is solid gold, then it is worth the search. That is an agent's job; to find that gold needle.
     Agents don't have time to read every manuscript, so along with your book, you have to send in a query, which is basically a mini book proposal, from what I have gathered. The query tells the agent the basics of your book. So I will soon be whipping up one of those, too.
     I have found an agent who looks promising, and I expect to be sending in my book and query soon. It is incredible how God has been opening doors for me!
     My book was not originally written for publication. I wrote it for fun, to be read only by my friends and family. Everyone kept asking if I was going to publish, telling me it was really good. I just thought, "Yeah, well, that's just cuz you're my friends. You wouldn't really think it was good if it had been written by someone else!" Then one of my friends sent it to someone I had never met (and still haven't met, in fact)... and this person was captured by the story! It was the first time someone I didn't know had read something I'd written, someone who had no obligation to say they liked it, and they thought it was good. I was... well, flattered! If that person liked it, then maybe other people would, too. I finally began to consider publishing it.
     Since then, I have been slowly moving in that direction, but it wasn't until recently that it has begun to really come together. It is crazy how God seems to be letting all this happen. We'll see how it goes from here, but for now, I am going to keep pursuing getting this book published unless God tells me to knock it off.

-ST

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Yeah, it always feels good when someone you don't know says he/she likes it. The people who compliment me on The Underground about LEGENDS is alot more touching then my mom who will say that even if I was to create something that people would be pay to be kept away from them. Longstory short, it's nice to be complimented by people you don't know.

Storyteller SilverLoom said...

Yup! :D

Precentor said...

Yeah. I am praying for your publishing expierence.

Storyteller SilverLoom said...

Thank you, Millard! I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it.

Emilyn J Clover said...

I'd like to read your book/s one day! I pray that God shows you exactly what to do in the publishing business. I myself am reading a book about publishing/self-publishing(we need to do as much homework about publishing as we can) and I have realized that self-publishing is a good step to take. Mark Twain self-published a few of his books and many others did too. There are a lot of good reasons to self-publish but I'll just list two: you get to keep your work; it cannot go out of print if you don't want it to. You get to keep a lot more royalties(money from sales). Sorry, I don't mean to preach... Traditional publishing can be good too but only a few people's works get chosen out of a hundred manuscripts that are sent in. But its up to you. Just thought you might want to know each option. God bless you and your book/s!

Storyteller SilverLoom said...

Thanks for the encouragement, Writer4Christ! Though I am not about to publish anymore, I am definitely considering self-publishing in the future.