So You Want To Write a Book
by Kathye Quick
Copyright ©2007
Although it seems like
another lifetime ago, I remember vividly the moment I
decided that I was going to write a book. I had just
finished reading another romance novel and I thought
I can do this. I mean, I had been editor-in-chief
of my school paper, won a writing award from the Courier
News, and was infamous among by friends and family for
writing short, entertaining stories about people I
imagined were real. How hard could it be to turn all
that talent into a 300 page book?
Over the course of the
next few months, I sat down at the word-processor and
banged out a story that spanned about 320 pages. With
absolutely no idea of what I was doing, I opened up the
front cover of one of my favorite books, copied the
address of the publisher from the inside pages onto a
manila envelope, stuffed in the manuscript and sent it
off to wait for fortune and glory.
Well that was on a
Thursday. By Monday it was back in my mailbox. I
figured someone at the publisher’s had made a mistake,
so I put it in another manila envelope and sent it back
out. That was Tuesday. By Friday it was back.
Now it was a mystery.
That Saturday I was
attending my first NJRW meeting with Barbara Brenton,
now a NY Times Best-selling author, back then a
Harlequin author. I had
met Barbara in a bank in
Hillsborough a week or two
earlier and, while standing in
the teller line, we got to
talking and she spoke about this
wonderful writers’ group and
thought I should join.
For some reason, a
little voice inside my head advised me not to say
anything about my “submission,” so in a rare moment of
sanity, I listened to it.
After the meeting I
knew why my manuscript had come back in record time.
It was not formatted
correctly, had no page numbers, no chapters, no
synopsis, no query letter, everyone but the kitchen sink
had a role in the story and both the hero and heroine
ended up dead. Some romance, huh?
I NEVER told anyone
what I did – until now.
While we all have heard
the story about a manuscript written on lined yellow
legal paper, in pencil, with coffee stains on the bottom
with an editor liking it so much that she just had to
publish it, and then it sold a hundred cajillion copies,
the reality is that it doesn’t happen very often.
Maybe once in a hundred cajillion submissions.
In today’s
tight market, the competition for the available
publishing slots, especially for first books, is
incredible. To give your manuscript the best chance for
one of them, even before your great story gets read, you
need to know the submission guide lines. Or at the very
least – have page numbers and chapters!
Seriously,
though, sometimes there is a question niggling in the
back of your mind but you think it is not relevant
enough to ask. Not true. Here’s you chance. Ask away.
I’ll
answer the one you probably want to ask of me. Yes, I
did eventually get the manuscript in proper format and
submit it correctly. While it did come back with a
rejection letter, not in a few days but rather in a
more respectable few months, I was told that my greatest
strengths were plotting and pacing. So I went to every
NJRW meeting I could attend and soaked up the
information like a sponge. And although that particular
manuscript occupies a place of honor in the bottom
drawer of my desk, I did get eight others published and
am working on a new venture called The Sons of Lost
Civilizations, a romantic fantasy trilogy that I
hope to submit to the very same publisher who sent my
first manuscript back on the first UPS truck out of New
York
It was
NJRW that helped me “Put My Heart in a Book” and it will
be NJRW that helps me keep it there.
Now I’d
like to help you in any way I can. |
