It was December 2019 when I left my publisher (a small indie press, based in the USA), changed my author’s pseudonym to my real name, and started my publishing journey from scratch.
It wasn’t an easy decision to make. After all, I had a novel, three novellas, and a couple of short stories published by this publisher. Why did I terminate the contract then? Well, it’s a long story for another long blog post. All I can tell you right now is that I know I’ve made the right decision. I knew it was for good.
All I had back then works-wise were a couple of unfinished short stories, my already published novellas and novel with the rights reverted to me, and my brand new project, a sci-fi thriller novel Dive Beyond Eternity (only a 30,000+ word novella back then with the cryptic title The U-nseen).
Only one thing I was sure about: I needed a new good home for my new book. Why didn’t I consider self-publishing? Well, this is another good topic for another post.
So I started from scratch… Again! This time, I decided to “go big” and look for an agent or a well-established publisher.
After my first round of queries, I realised that both agents and publishers preferred novels to novellas and, in fact, novella as a genre was almost impossible to sell. Calling for help from beta-readers, I realised the main thing–the story was far from completed, it needed more “space to breathe”. I spent another few months of 2020 rewriting it into a full-length novel, dealing with beta-readers, hiring a professional proofreader to polish my manuscript, participating in #PitchWars and other contests, and finally, renaming it Dive Beyond Eternity.
The second round of queries was more successful with one partial and two full requests (one from a #PitchWars mentor).
And then… An R&R email came from an agent who’d requested my full manuscript. An R&R (or Revise and Resubmit) from an agent or a publisher is like a lottery ticket for a querying author. I must admit I felt over the moon! The agent was very polite and explained in all details what they would like to see in my work and why they were not ready to represent it as it was.
Excited and inspired, I spent another three months rewriting my novel, making it stronger, changing the ending, cutting all “fat”, and speeding up the pace.
In September 2021, the third round of queries started, which brought me a couple more full requests, but… no answer from the agent.
It was the beginning of 2022. By then, I had built my portfolio of short stories and short non-fiction, publishing my stories, essays, and reviews in magazines. I didn’t regret terminating my contract with the publisher, but… I’d started to get exhausted from querying, waiting, receiving a generic “no” or no response at all. I chased the agent a few times with no success.
I thought I’d exhausted all the resources and was ready to put Dive Beyond Eternity aside. I almost gave up on it. Then… I had an insignificant chat with an editor on Twitter about northern genres vs southern genres in the UK. This chat led me to a query, followed by the full request, followed by… Yes!! A publishing contract.
I still can’t believe it! After two years of researching, writing, rewriting, editing, and querying, I’m thrilled to announce that my science fiction/thriller novel Dive Beyond Eternity has finally found an amazing home at Northodox Press UK (link to the publisher’s site: https://www.northodox.co.uk/ ). Northodox Press is championing authors from the north of England who’re currently underrepresented on the UK’s publishing stage.
The idea of my long post is to encourage my fellow authors not to give up on their writing. I know it’s easier to say than do, but trust me, you never know what the future is holding for you. You never know where, when, or under what circumstances you can meet your agent/publisher. Please don’t rely on traditional routes only (QueryTracker, official cold querying), build your social media presence, and talk to people. Twitter and #WritingCommunity helped me a lot with finding beta-readers, participating in #PitchWars, and even finding my publisher.
I hope my post encourages my fellow readers to buy more books from smaller presses. Big publishers play safe. Very often they acquire books similar to the ones they’ve published already. In most cases, they follow well-established trends instead of creating new ones. Smaller publishers are more adventurous. They give a voice to debut, usually underrepresented authors and topics rarely touched by the big presses.
P.S.: As for the agent and R&R, they have finally replied to me after almost ten months of waiting. They said that the book has got potential, but they were not quite sure how to represent it. I’m grateful to them nevertheless. Without their constructive feedback, I would never rewrite my novel and would find it a good home. So “no” doesn’t necessarily mean that your book is unmarketable or not good enough to be published/represented. If you try to get as much useful feedback out of every “no” you get and apply it to your work, sooner or later, you’ll succeed.
About Dive Beyond Eternity (out February-March 2023)
Zara Rose is a World War II naval historian who dedicated her research to submarines and German naval tactics. When her mentor, Professor Karl Milne, engages her into a promising project, Zara can’t miss an opportunity to investigate the remains of a German U-boat, discovered in the North Sea.
Two divers from Zara’s team disappear during the mission, and Professor Milne sends Zara help, Dr. Stefan Krause who specialises in this type of U-boats. Zara and Stefan discover a mysterious device onboard the U-boat, Die Fledermaus, a Nazi superweapon, able to split time and space.
When the professor vanishes together with the device, the U-boat is confiscated by the Navy, and the intelligence agencies become involved, Zara must stop the weapon from falling into the wrong hands before Die Fledermaus turns reality into a nightmare where time is long dead.
SaltandNovels 