You guys are in for a treat today! Sharon Bayliss who's debut, THE CHARGE is out this month from Curiosity Quills, is going to share her path to publication. It's not a traditional path. Sharon had lots of ups and downs. But her journey shows that there are many paths to publication - more now than ever. Writer's need to be aware of all off them - and be open to different opportunities when they come up.
Check out more (including an excerpt) on THE CHARGE here. And, after Sharon's post, there are a bunch of really interesting links that will make you fall in love with THE CHARGE even more.
No one could call me an overnight success. I've been chasing my
dream of publication for fifteen years. Granted, I have had a lot of
distractions during that time, college, marriage, children...you know, life in
general, but I always returned to work on my goal of publishing a novel.
I am proud to say that on March 2, 2013, my dream came true. I
published my debut novel, The
Charge, with Curiosity Quills Press.
So how did I finally get it done?
In 2009 I started writing the novel that would eventually become The Charge. It went through so
many drafts and total overhauls, early beta readers can only barely recognize
the final published result. In the summer of 2011, I did my first round of
serious querying. I went the "normal" route of querying agents. I had
a few positive moments, some blog contest wins and an occasional positive query
reply, but overall, the query process was soul-draining and ultimately
unsuccessful.
Fortunately, I wasn't thwarted. After rewriting my query almost
fifty times (yes, I counted), I finally realized and accepted that the query
wasn't the problem. There were problems with the basic structure of the story.
So, I essentially started over. And this time, I write the query first. When I felt like I had
an awesome query after only a few tries, I knew I had finally figured it
out.
I got to work re-writing the story and when I was done, it just
felt different. I knew I had gotten it right. I had two amazing beta readers
look over The Charge, one
of which was none other than Alexandra Villasante! They made some excellent
suggestions and I went to work on yet another significant revision.
One problem Alex pointed out was that The Charge didn't fit well into the YA genre
(which was where I had been querying it) because my main character was 18 and
out on his own. I agreed, but aging him up or down proved difficult. Read more
about my journey to discover the new adult category in the article, "18-Year-Old Characters are Strictly Prohibited."
Despite the categorization problem, I felt excited and confident
about The Charge, so I set out to query agents again and entered some contests.
And...
Still nothing.
Although I felt like I had made significant strides and was very
proud of The Charge, the general consensus from the agents was,
"no."
I didn't want to shelve The
Charge, but I was discouraged and decided to at least move on to something
else for a while. So, I wrote a completely different novel (but that's a whole
other story). I was feeling very excited about this new novel and was about to
start querying it, but then something unexpected happened.
The publishing industry moves slowly and I'm not very patient. So,
I had moved on before The Charge had really gotten a chance. I hadn't
thought about The Charge in a while, then I learned that it had
made it through the first round of the 2012 Amazon
Breakthrough Novel Award Competition. Then, a month later, The Charge became a quarterfinalist. I didn't
move to the semi-finalist round, but I did win a very positive Publishers Weekly review.
My success in the ABNA contest made me rethink everything. The
expert judges and the Publishers
Weekly reviewer thought it
was great! The agents who read my query may not have fallen in love, or thought
they would have trouble fitting it into the correct marketing box, but that
didn't mean the book wasn't worth publishing. So, with my renewed confidence, I
tried something new, I queried small publishers directly. And since small
publishers were open to the "New Adult" category, I was able to query
it in the category it really belonged in.
It didn't take long at all for me to get some full requests, and
in about a nanosecond in publishing time, Curiosity
Quills Press made me an
offer.
I have to admit, I was thrilled but also discombobulated. Things
had happened quickly and not the way I had expected. I had no agent to help me
negotiate the contract. Even after lots of research and consulting with
friends, there was no way to be 100% certain that I was doing the right thing.
But my gut told me it was the right thing to do, and I know I made the right
choice.
My journey to publication was long and often painful, but I
believe it all happened for a reason. Nothing worth doing is ever easy.
Thank you for inviting me to your blog, Alex, and for all your
support along the way!
Thanks Sharon! What a great journey and an awesome book. Now, do YOU want to enter for a chance to win a copy of THE CHARGE? Of course you do!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Connect with Sharon on the interwebs!
Sharon Bayliss is a native of Austin, Texas and
works her day job in the field of social work. When she’s not writing, she
enjoys living in her “happily-ever-after” with her husband and two young sons.
She can be found eating Tex-Mex on patios, wearing flip-flops, and playing in
the mud (which she calls gardening). You can connect with Sharon at www.facebook.com/authorsharonbayliss
and www.sharonbayliss.com
