Publishing perspective – January 2012

Recently I wrote about the unexpected treasures I found while helping my mother prepare her home for sale – specifically, an SS troopers writing box from WWII and a picture of my grandfather’s battalion during the army of occupation at the end of WWI. Today we found something much more recent which made me chuckle.

My mother keeps letters – quite a lot of them I might add. She’s kept a fair number from me, one of which we had a look at yesterday. The letter is dated January 12, 2012.

I have finally finished revising my very first book. That’s the one about Edward and Ann. Mumsy, you might remember that I called it While the Secret Sits, but the new title is Unravelled. It’s intended to refer to things like marriages and lives unravelling, both of which occur in the story. I’ve been working on it for five months so it’s a relief to have the changes done. Ian has offered to read it, as has another man who recently read Lies Told in Silence (and loved it).

That leads to my next topic. I spoke with my agent on Wednesday and he told me of further rejections, which is hugely disappointing. Such an incredibly slow, arcane process working with publishers. Chris will give the manuscript to an editor who then takes two or three months to read it and then says no. Not to say that he doesn’t have it out with more than one publisher at a time but it tends to be two or three at a time and hence glacial in terms of progress. All the while, I am powerless to help in any way, which, as you might imagine, is not a happy circumstance for yours truly. Sigh – at this rate, I’ll be 90 before someone publishes my novel.

And here I am with those two books self-published, in the hands of readers and with respectable ratings on Goodreads and Amazon as well as very favourable reviews. One of those books – Unravelled – was selected as Indie Editor’s Choice by the Historical Novel Society. Perhaps not the same as being traditionally published, but I’m one happy camper!

P.S. I’m not 90 🙂

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The historical fiction author behind A Writer of History...

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4 Responses

  1. Excellent and an inspiration to the rest of us!

    On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 7:04 AM, A Writer of History wrote:

    > awriterofhistory posted: “Recently I wrote about the unexpected > treasures I found while helping my mother prepare her home for sale – > specifically, an SS troopers writing box from WWII and a picture of my > grandfather’s battalion during the army of occupation at the end of WWI. > Tod”

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