Well, after the angst and suffering of my last post, I broke through the wall and successfully continued the revising! If I'd known the only way to dislodge the fuzz in my brain was to publicly complain about how difficult the revisions were, I would have done it a long time ago. I'm now on Ch. 35 of 43. I have either cut or combined 6 chapters and I'm feeling good about things again. (and in case you were overcome with worry about how I handled the party invitation, I cut it and made the party a much smaller scene. I also trashed all the filler chapters. Why were they there in the first place? I don't know, but now they're gone forever. Whew. Now we can all rest easy.)
I hope to be done with these first round revisions by the end of this month. Then it's off to my team of trusted individuals for their brainpower and then I'll revise again based on their comments. After that, I expect to be agent ready and then the query process will begin. I have already selected the first 10 agents I want to query. In a perfect world, at least one of them will be chomping at the bit to snatch me up and then we'll wait for the inevitable book deal. If not, you'll have a lot of posts about rejection.
In the meantime, I've put another pot on the fire and have resurrected my picture book manuscript, PAJAMA GIRL. I read an article in the SCBWI Bulletin about MeeGenius. They publish picture books, in a digital format that can be read online or downloaded to your Iphone, Ipad, etc. Is this the wave of the future? Is it a fad? Is it career death or a career starter? I'm not sure yet. I'd love your comments on it. I'm considering submitting PAJAMA GIRL to them and see what they say. Could be interesting, could be fun, could be a bad idea. Time will tell.
I'd love to see a ton of comments on this one, so get to it!
I've heard of these digital projects. They are smaller, so you don't get as much exposure. However, there is virtually no investment, so the requirement to sell isn't as large. This means they can let more no names get in (which, like syndication on television, can mean a lot lower quality, but a gem can slip past). With book publishing making less money, major publishers want to sell, so even if Dream Girl has the ability to be Twilight, publishers might still turn you down just because you don't have the name. NPR did an expose on such a couple of months ago: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125503109
ReplyDeleteI read the above comment and it scared the crap out of me. haha. I always have to tell myself that this won't happen. After all--Stephanie Meyer was a nobody once too. In fact, I've read a ton of great books by debut authors this year. Plus, with someone like Jay Asher behind you, don't you have a little more of a foot in the door? Will he write you a recommendation?
ReplyDeleteCongrats on your revision process working out. I've been there about a million times myself. It's really rough, but the end result is always a better book, if you can just stay with it!
Anyway, I'm writing everyone that was nice enough to enter our contest to let them know that voting has begun! Come over and pick your favorite--plus keep an eye on the site, the next contest will be for the chimera's origin story. We'll have some great prizes for that one. Thanks! Good luck on your book!! :)