The path to publication can be a long and winding one. I was extremely lucky on my journey to meet many wonderful authors who were willing to help. Some became my mentors, all became my friends. I created this page in hopes of helping other emerging writers reach their goals. I hope you find encouragement and some practical advice too.
Most writers find it startling when they learn I’ve sold everything I’ve ever submitted for publication. But it really isn’t as mysterious and unbelievable as it sounds. You see, I didn’t just write articles, poems, and books and then try submitting them. I had a very specific approach. And it worked!
I started by getting an education. I bought reference books on the subject of writing and studied them. Below I’ve suggested some great books that you will want to own as you continue your writing journey. I purchased them when I started writing and I still use them!
After learning enough to begin my novel, I set up specific writing time. Since I had a fulltime job as a real estate broker, that meant from 4 a.m. to 11 a.m., and then again at night with whatever time was left at the end of the day. Writing a salable novel takes this kind of discipline and dedication. Even if you are only able to set aside one hour before work and one hour after, at the end of the week you will be fourteen hours closer to your goal.
When I had a completed first draft of 50,000 words, I hired a professional story structure editor to teach me how to bring my novel to the next level. A book that would be salable. I worked on my rewrites for ten months. When these revisions were completed I signed with an agent and had two multiple book offers within a few weeks. I accepted the contract that resulted in the Regalo Grande series.
Your journey to publication won’t happen by accident. It will be the result of God calling you to write and then providing the opportunities to answer that call. If you have been called to write, embrace God’s gift and commit to doing your part. God will prosper what He ordains. As a result of my own journey, I have formed a company, Writing With Fire, and now teach commercial story structure to serious authors who are writing to publish. For more information on these services click here: WRITING TO PUBLISH
Reference Books You’ll Want to Have:
- Beginnings, Middles & Ends by Kress
- The Writer’s Journey by Vogler
- Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Browne and King
- Scene & Structure by Bickham
- Characters & Viewpoint by Card
- Techniqus of the Selling Writer by Swain
- Word Painting by McClanahan
- Goal, Motivation & Conflict by Dixon
Now it’s very possible that you’re working hard, submitting your manuscript, and then . . . receiving a rejection letter. Ack : (
My advice is to take what there is to be learned from it, each time you face it, and forget the rest. There have been many examples of authors being rejected time after time, and then when the timing was perfect, meeting success. Here are some great examples:
I am sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just do not know how to use the English language.
—San Francisco Examiner, rejection letter to Kipling (1889)Shakespeare’s name, you may depend on it, will go down. He has no invention as to stories, none whatever. —Lord Byron (1814)
Ralph Waldo Emerson [is] a hoary-headed and toothless baboon. —Thomas Carlyle, Collected Works (1871)
A huge dose of hyperbolical slang, maudlin sentimentalism and tragic-comic bubble and squeak. —William Harrison Ainsworth, New Monthly Magazine, review of Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1851)
A gross trifling with every fine word. —Springfield Republican, review of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
We fancy that any child might be more puzzled than enchanted by this stiff, silly, overwrought story. —Children’s Books’ review of Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carrol (1865)
The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the “curiosity” level. —The Diary of Anne Frank
It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA. —Animal Farm by George Orwell
The next time you receive a rejection letter, come to this web page
and remind yourself of what good company you’re in.
