Since I last wrote in this blog, I have been busy working toward a writing career without yet breaking into print. However, I have been ramping up to move in that direction.
Last summer, I spent several months getting feedback on my short stories (I have roughly 10 or so, many of which have won prizes), so I can start submitting them for publication. I sent a few of them out, one of them to magazine after magazine with no success, even though it won a first prize from League of Utah Writers and an honorable mention from the Writer's Digest contest. I've since learned that a fraction of a percent of short stories actually make it into the top publications. My focus has turned elsewhere, but I'm still determined that they see print.
I also sent the first of my chapter book series for 7-10-year-olds, Doomimals book 1: CockadoodleDOOM (about kids and their super-powered pets saving the world from the Dog of War), out to a few of the handful of agents who work with this age group and genre, also coming up empty. I decided at that point to back up and get the feedback of a freelance editor, as I did with my first romance novel. I am now working through that feedback.
Just in the last couple of weeks, I started listening to the free webinars that have been sent through various sources to my email. I figured a free webinar may enlighten me as to something I may be missing. The first made it clear that I need to do a lot of marketing, myself, no matter how I break into print, self-publishing or otherwise, and gave me some clues about how to do it. I totally recommend such webinars, even though they all end in a sales pitch.
Another of these webinars, given by The Write Practice, offered to take me through the process of writing, networking and marketing, and actually publishing a book either through conventional or self-publication. This seems an offer I could not pass up. I have just started following its instructions in assembling a webpage, linking to my extant and future writing. I will forward the link as soon as it's done.
Another most exciting development in my life is, after struggling with the conventional publication process and balking at the prices companies want to help you get self-published, I may have hit upon something in between, a new kind of publication that features the best of both worlds. It is in its fledgling stages, but I will write about this in the future as well if it comes to fruition.
In other words, it finally feels like I'm very close to breaking in print besides local presses and my theses on Amazon. I'm not sure where, how, and what will come first, but I'll keep you posted as it happens.
