Part 1: The rocky road to publishing.
Way back in 1994 when I had an small idea for a book I had no incline what was in store for me as I got into the fraught world of publishing, or in my case the deceitful side of publishing. I was standing in a Plymouth cemetery on a cold and windy hill side mid January burying a 'shoe box' my nephew had been a still birth and it was the most harrowing experience a person can experience. It was so atmospheric and after the long journey home I wrote down the scene.
Move on a few years to 2003 and I'm living in Cyprus. I decided to take out the idea and write a book. I had already written 3 chapters so how difficult could it be to complete a book. For me, anyway not that difficult. I had the time and no pressure so I just sat at my computer and wrote. The first draft was really rough but my friends said it was good. I decided to have a critical look at it and rewrote a lot of it and now I was happy. I decided to try and get a publishing deal. I wrote to hundreds of agents and publishers which wasn't that easy to do from Cyprus. By chance I had read a book by a young Japanese girl about her change in lifestyle when she moved to the USA to attend university. The not at the back said hat her publisher was looking for new material. I checked eagerly on line but found that they only wanted non-fiction so my crime novel was out. There was advice on the website to search the USA for an agent and take it from there. I did that and sent of a request to be represented by New York Literary Agency and to my amazement they said yes, I mean if you're going to be represented by anyone why not someone in New York; I was ecstatic. Over the next few months we corresponded, Hil Mallory was my personal adviser she was really supportive and advised me how for a minimum cost, which was totally refundable on my signing a contract, I should get a professional critique done, they of course at NLA had one on their books. I paid the money and sent off the manuscript. The critique came back with really exceptional comments. There was little to do to make the book marketable, a small amount of editing, which I could do myself, to save money and then we were ready to get the manuscript on the 'look for now' website which was for publishers to search for specific genres of books. I was on there for about a year. When no one took up the option of the book I was asked if I would consider the aggressive marketing campaign with a manager called Beth Stormes (a name I said would make a good character in a book!) she wrote to me and advised that for a small amount $275 I could have a letter and pitch sent out to 10 publishers. I would get a report back every month with the status of the pitch. I was really impressed when I knew manes on the list, all top publishing houses. Over the next 6 months one by every all of the publishers 'passed' until they had all said no. Then the next thing was should we do another campaign, and other $275 was on its way and we started again. We did this three times in all until April 2008 when I got another email asking would I like to be considered for publishing by their 'sister' company Eloquent Books? I corresponded with NLA about it and decide that it was possibly the only way I would get published. Sometimes your dreams blind you to doing things you would not normally do. I again had to pay for the artwork, typesetting and some marketing, another $750. I was disappointed that I could not have the book published in paperback only hard back, not the way I wanted to go and at a price of $26.95 way too expensive for the mass market. However your worries, fears and all questions go out of the window when the delivery man brings you the first copy of your book.
In part 2: What happened next:
