Slipped the Hook

My bite didn't pan out.  I still take it as the good sign that I was able to sell the idea enough for someone to express some interest.  I was also lucky to have received some feedback.  I guess it's back to the queries.

Wish me luck.

A bite!

originally posted Feb 16, 2015, 5:15 PM by Kelly Lopushansky

I feel completely nauseated.  Why?  Because I've actually had a bite.  An actual agent is interested in reading the first three chapters of my novel and a synopsis!  I'm having my synopsis read by one more person before I send it in, just to be sure.  But it'll go tomorrow. Even if this agent isn't the one, I'm so happy to say that I'm finally doing something right.  Or at least, right enough that someone is taking a second look.  (I like this one, he deals exclusively with romance and women's fiction.  I also spent a lot of time checking out his blog and I based on that, he's someone with whom I could work.) So what did I do differently?  I'm not entirely sure.  I did mention in my query how I happened to find him (a post on Writer's Digest about the difference between romance and women's fiction) and that I have read some of his blog.  I did attempt to connect to other agents in a somewhat similar manner, but maybe this one was just more natural.  After all, I really did enjoy his posts. I also rewrote my pitch on Saturday, shrinking it down to 250 words.  I think it's a little tighter and makes more out of each word.  So it could be that. As always, it's a little hard to say what this one liked as opposed to the others, because the ones who didn't like it didn't say why.  But once I have an agent, I'll post my query here for viewing.  I’m saving the queries I used in individual files named for the agent to whom I submitted it, so it’ll be easy to post.  Until I sign with an agent, I may continue to evolve my query, so I'm not posting it now. Thank you for your positive thoughts.  This is continuing to be a journey of ups and downs.

Loss of Focus? Never! Maybe. Hmm.

originally posted Feb 14, 2015, 4:11 PM by Kelly Lopushansky                                            

I have been distracted from my current goal of finding an agent (gasp!) because I've been completely engrossed in writing Truce Or Consequences and my real life.  With a teenager heading to High School next year, all sorts of things have been coming up.  On the plus-side, my teenager is showing responsibility by looking into admissions requirements for the colleges of his choice already and on his own.  I don't remember worrying about admissions requirements until later on, perhaps my junior year.  Of course, the graduation requirements met the admissions requirements back then, so all a student need worry about is getting a good score on the SAT or ACT and whatever they could do to distinguish themselves from other applicants.  Meeting the requirements just wasn't an issue.  So I'm proud to say that my husband and I are raising independent kids! But I can't drop my drive to get my book published, so yesterday I took part in a webinar for getting a book published and learned a lot!  Today I revamped my pitch (partly to shrink it down to 250 words and partly to just make it stronger) and submitted it to a pitch contest.  If I'm one of the lucky randomly chosen entrants, my pitch will be reviewed by experts and I'll actually get feedback!  Here's hoping. I'm also working on an entry for Pitch Madness.  On February 20th I'll get to submit a 35 word pitch and 250 from my novel.  If I'm chosen as a favorite, I may receive a request for more of the manuscript from an agent in March.  If you're interested in Pitch Madness see Brenda Drake's website for more information. I'm also prepping for #PitMad which is coming up in March on Twitter.  If the idea of pitching a book in 35 words is scary, try 140 characters, and include the #PitMad hashtag and a hashtag for the genre in that 140!  I think the hardest part for me is that HM:MTB really has three main characters and not two, and since the third is going to be in the next six books of the series, I feel like she has to be included in the pitch.  Clearly, in 140 characters I just can't squeeze it all in, so I may have to let her fade into the background on this one. Wish me luck!

Just a few hours without Electronics

originally posted Jan 10, 2015, 7:16 PM by Kelly Lopushansky

The process of querying my 'A' list of agents continues as I'm taking my time to put together each query.  I really do think I've found a nice group of excellent people and I'd be lucky to work with any of them.  Once my process is complete, I'll add a list of the agencies that I queried, but for now I'll be sharing my thoughts on a very different subject: family fun. My daughter started playing a trivia game on her tablet and she was asking me for help with some of the questions.  We continued with that for a while, until I decided to download the game myself.  From then on we played together, helping each other as we took our turns.  I learned that my daughter has an uncanny ability to guess the right answers in certain categories.  We'd had such a good time, I suggested my husband and son also join us.  From there...well, things went down hill. All of us attempting to play in one room, several asking for help at once, made for a great deal of overlapping and finally yelling.  At the point that neither my husband nor I could take it anymore and there was a great deal of upset, we decided that it was time to put it away. I don't recall exactly how the topic turned, but since we all were still interested in playing together, we found ourselves enjoying charades.  I was the only one who'd ever played and sadly, my memory is a bit foggy, so there was a bit of a challenge getting some of conventions right.  (I didn't even know there was a sign for a tv show.)  But we laughed and played for over an hour and had to quit when it was time to start getting prepared for the next day and bed. I think my favorite charade was How the Grinch Stole Christmas which my daughter acted out by getting the How and Christmas.  I am now more in support of putting down the electronics then I've ever been before.  And it has occurred to me that perhaps parents need to be digging into some of the old games for inspiration.  We've had board game and card game night before, but this one, where the actor came up with their own idea, was more fun than I've had in long time. If you have a thought about family fun and electronics, please be sure to share it.  I'm especially interested in anecdotes.

A Short List (or The Stress from Finding a Good Match)

originally posted Dec 23, 2014, 8:00 PM by Kelly Lopushansky

When I created this website, I planned it as a log of events as I jump into the deep waters of publishing.  I’d also hoped, secretly, that it would maintain a positive attitude.  I suspect that many of my postings are going to be full of less than positive emotion, for at least a little while.  Why?  Because this is inordinately stressful! I’ve now spent several weeks going through listings of agents and agencies, looking for those unique people that might appreciate my particular style of writing and my story.  The good news is that I have a reasonable sized list of likely candidates with one particular stand out. How could this be anything but positive?  I really like this agent.  I really like this agency.  They represent authors that I love and whose style is similar to mine.  This is the RIGHT ONE. What do I do when I find such a wonderful match…panic!  I have one brief email to convince this agent that we are a wonderful match in literary Heaven.  So, I need to sell her with this query letter.  I have read so many different opinions/posts/essays on what a query letter should contain and how to put one together, that I’m half blind.  This much I’ve determined, the letter needs to be both professional and have a strong hook at the beginning. What makes a good hook for a romance novel written by an Electrical Engineer?  I wish I could come up with something pithy to do with sparks, but it just isn’t happening at the moment.  Currently, I’m toying around with “What could an electrical engineer possibly have to say on the subject of romance?” as my opening.  It isn’t doing it for me, in part because I hope that most people realize that understanding romance isn’t restricted to certain job titles, and in part because while it probably isn’t something she’s seen before, it isn’t exactly positive. And there’s the kicker, I want this letter to really reflect me.  I may be feeling a little overwhelmed and stressed, but I’m a positive person.  I have a real expectation that if I do the work, I’ll get my novel published. I’ll let you know how my hook turns out once I’ve finished this letter.  Wish me luck!

Opportunities and Disappointments

originally posted Dec 7, 2014, 5:20 PM by Kelly Lopushansky

This week provided a bit of a disappointment to me.  Last Sunday, I read about an opportunity called #PitMad.  #PitMad is a pitch party on Twitter where authors can use their 140 character tweets to pitch their books to agents and publishers.  If a tweet is favorited by an agent or publisher, the author is invited to submit.  For more information, see the website of the brilliant creator of #PitMad, Brenda Drake.

I thought this sounded amazing and made a note to look it up later.  When I was on Twitter for a few minutes just a few days later, I discovered that #PitMad had been that day and had ended two hours earlier.

Although I am hugely disappointed at this missed opportunity, I’m trying to take it in stride and plan to be ready for #PitMad in March, if I haven’t as yet secured an agent.  I’m also looking at this disappointment as a good lesson to investigate all opportunities immediately in the future.

So what have I done to move myself toward my goal of finding an agent?  I’ve been working on my query letter, taking advice from many agent websites.  I’ve also been compiling my list of agents to query.  I’ve been working out of the Novel And Short Story Writer’s Market by Rachel Randall and identified 51 agencies that seem appropriate.  Now I’m going through that list and visiting every website to see if there really is a fit, reading about individual agents and their interests.

While I hope to find an agent that really jumps out as a perfect match, I’m focusing on finding a top 10 to 15 to query first.  I’ll still query every agent/agency that accepts manuscripts in the appropriate genre, but I’ll start with my most likely candidates.

My goal had been to start querying this week, but that turned out to be unrealistic.  I need at least another week to polish my template query letter and to continue to work on my list.  I want to be sure that each query will be personalized based on a true picture of how I think my work will appeal to each individual agent.  My new goal is to be ready and start sending out queries on December 20^th.  Wish me luck!

Baby Steps

originally posted Nov 30, 2014, 2:36 PM by Kelly Lopushansky

I've taken what I think is a logical step.  I looked at all the books I've read that I think fall into a similar category as Heavenly Match Making: Meant To Be to find their publishers.  If I'm right, then those are the publishers I should be targeting.  There is one in particular that is calling to me, but they only accept manuscripts from agents, so (decision made) it looks like I'm definitely starting off looking for an agent.  Not to fear, that's why I picked up the second book yesterday, agent listings and lots of advice.

I've been trying to find the proper format for submitting a manuscript to an agent.  So far, I've found a few things that seem to be constant across books and the internet.  For example, double spacing the body.  Check!  1" margins.  Check!  Font choice...that seems to depend on who you ask, so I'm definitely going old school with Times New Roman 12pt.  I don't think I'll be rejected for that.  (Though, Courier...)

The cover page seems to be a bit of head scratcher.  I've found plenty of agreement on what needs to be on it: Title, author, contact information, word count... but not a lot of agreement on where some of these things should be placed.  I've taken a google survey (looked at the top 20 results on google) and I'm going to follow the most frequently used.  It's my sincere hope that I won't be rejected because my contact information is in the wrong corner of the cover page.  Of course, as I send queries to agents, if they have submission guidelines, I'll be following those.

As I sit at the computer right now, I've tweaked my manuscript to meet the general submission guidelines.  It's ready to go somewhere.  So I guess the next step is to keep reading and figure out where my novel needs to go.  I know there will be more before it can go, at the very least query letters will need to be written.  I believe I also saw something about a synopsis.

I'm only a few days into the process and I'm beginning to see why more books don't make it to the shelves!  It was truly ignorant bliss when I believed the hard part was actually writing the book.

So, my next goal is to have query letters and whatever else is needed ready to go by the end of next weekend.  Again, I may be biting off too much, but I'm going to keep setting those impossible goals so I have a shot at a miracle!

Not so much a big bang...

originally posted Nov 29, 2014, 1:03 PM by Kelly Lopushansky

This is the beginning, or is it the middle?  I certainly hope it isn't the end.  I started Heavenly Matchmaking: Meant to Be in November of 2013 for NaNoWriMo.  The 50,000+ words I wrote during that madcap month have held up to my own criticism far better than the 100,000+ I wrote after.  But I kept on and finally completed my first novel in September 2014.

My intent with this website/blog is to track my journey to get HM published, and that will be the end.  Well, not the end.  The end for HM.  By the time I see HM on a bookstore shelf, I expect to have at least two more books in the series ready to follow it (See On the Stove for my works in progress).  

As the journey begins, I'm pretty keenly set on going the traditional publishing route.  While I can't guarantee where I'll end up, I'll share the searches, the decisions, my decision making process, the highs and lows, and the adventure.

I hope that anyone with insights and thoughts to share will comment.  I look forward to reading those as much as I look forward to the day I can say "I'm a published author!"