My Adult Fantasy Novel "Line 21"

Since I decided back in 2010 to serious up about my writing, I thought I would share the pain with all of my readers. All the grief and aggravation about writing my book, writing the query letter and writing the synopsis, I shared with all of my friends and readers.

Now I'm gonna share the pain, the heartache and yes even the success of my submissions for Line 21. On this page you'll be able to see not only where I submitted my book to, be they agents or publishers, but what the end result was and what comments (if any) were given about my book.

I promise you this: it will be long, but hopefully it won't be tedious or boring, because as you know, the one thing I ain't, is tedious and boring.

1} Nancy Yost of Nancy Yost Literary Agency: snail mailed on March 28, 2011; Received a professional form rejection on April 30th, 2011. Overall, one month is a pretty decent response time for a query.

2} Evan Goldfried of Jill Grinberg Literary Management LLC: snail mailed on March 28, 2011; Another form letter, but this one was much more professional. Rejection received on April 14th, 2011.

3} Joanna Volpe of Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation: snail mailed on March 28, 2011 (little did I realize that she was in the top ten for queried agents); And being a top ten agent, I got the expected rejection form letter, which could've been photocopied a little bit better as it looks like it was hastily done before being hastily cut out. Rejection received on April 7, 2011.

4} Julia Lord of Julia Lord Literary Management; snail mailed on March 29, 2011; Rejection realized in the month of June 2011.

5} Diana Fox of Fox Literary; snail mailed on April 9, 2011; According to her guidelines for snail mail, no answer means rejection; Rejection realized in the month of May 2011.

6} Freaky Fountain Press; e-mailed on April 16, 2011; According to their guidelines, if they're interested within a four week turnaround, they'll request a partial; Rejection realized in the month of June 2011.

7} Solstice Publishing; e-mailed on July 16, 2011; According to their guidelines, I should get a response within 60 days and they frown on simultaneous submissions; Got an interesting initial response (7/18) from one of the editors who stated that he enjoyed my short story "Cedar's Mountain" that appeared in the e-zine Beat To A Pulp back in 2009; Sent a follow up e-mail on October 7th politely inquiring about the status of my query, and got a response the next day from the editor stating that he's slowly working his way through the queue and hasn't gotten to mine yet; sent another follow up e-mail on December 2nd and received basically the same reply. At this point, almost five and a half months later, I'm counting this as a reject; Well, true to form, I actually did get rejection on January 19, 2012, but it contained both some nice feedback and an offer of resubmision once I do some more editing; I spent about a month working on it and resubmitted on February 13, 2012; I got another semi-rejection on February 16, 2012 stating that it's not quite there yet and that I should revise it yet again; gave it some serious thought about doing a third revision and told the publisher as much; after some polite and nuanced discussion, an offer was made and accepted on February 24, 2012.

8} Carina Press; e-mailed on September 17, 2011; According to their guidelines, I should hear something in about fourteen to sixteen weeks. If not, I should submit a follow-up e-mail; Received a polite rejection e-mail on November 18, 2011.

9} Ellora's Cave; e-mailed on October 29, 2011; According to their guidelines, I should hear something in anywhere from two days to four weeks; quickest rejection ever received on October 31, 2011.

10} Barer Literary, LLC; I found about this particular agency via Novel Spaces and snail mailed an old fashioned query on November 21, 2011; received rejection on December 10, 2011.

11} Black Rose Writing; e-mailed on January 13, 2012; received request for full manuscript on January 31, 2012 and I should get a response of some kind within four to six weeks; interestingly enough, I discovered via Preditors & Editors that this is a vanity publisher, so we shall see what happens to crop up in a few weeks; after some careful thought, I decided to withdraw my submission from this publisher on February 13, 2012.

So the final score of the submission process for Line 21 winds up being this:

13 months spent (February 2010 thru March 2011) writing and editing novel to a high glossy finish.
11 months spent submitting the novel, March 2011 thru February 2012.
6 submissions to literary agents, 6 rejections received.
5 submissions to publishers, 3 rejections received, 1 submission withdrawn, and 1 very important acceptance.

And out of that one very important acceptance, we have this smartly designed book cover:

This fantastic book trailer:



This five page sampler to whet your appetite.

And finally, the link to purchase this sensational e-book from Solstice Publishing.
Or, if Amazon is your thing, a link to purchase it from there.