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Blog on writing

One of these things is not like the other: Vanity press

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I came across two curse words in one of my readings. The curse words, well to me, is vanity press. When I was first starting out I had no problem having them contact me. There are a variety of these publishers out there.

You can either be traditional, self published or both. Then you have the vanity houses. But not all publishing houses are the same. Some will ask for money up front. This is also known as vanity press. To be honest they are not interested in what your book is about or if it has promise. They are about the money and how they can get you to work with them, for them and eventually pay them.

Knowing about them early on gave me better protection. However, the last few months I have been hearing writers talk about them like it is a good thing. Let me say up front if this is where you want to go then hey it’s your money. But the bottom line is there are so many other avenues to getting your work out there.

You have traditional and self publishing which continues to evolve as the years go by. Stigmas on either has also evolves some for the better some not so much. But there is not a need to spend hard earn money to get your book out. Not every writer has the funds to do so, and even if the desire to get your book out is strong and it is for all of us, be careful where you place your baby.

It took you a long time to write it, edit it, revise it, edit it again, revise it again and finally get it in the best shape you can get it in. Why place it in the hands of people who to be quite blunt don’t care about your storyline but more about your wallet.

Author, Blog, Books, Manuscript, Publishers

Request for Manuscript

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In February a serious effort to submit two of my books was started. The email queries got sent out first and I am now working on the ones that need to be sent out by regular mail.

Well long story short I have just been contacted from a publisher. They want to see the rest of the Jasper. Amazon Parrot book. I know I know it is a long shot. But just hearing the nice things she said about the sections I sent her made me teary eye.

A small portion of me feels validated regardless of where this ends up. I thought darn woman it is silly to tear up over this but now that I have had a chance to think on it, it really isn’t.

There was a small set back. Earlier this year I created a new email just for my writing. The one I would use to send out my query letters, ask for information on guidelines and all that good stuff so it would not get lost in with my other email activities. So all excited from the contact from a publisher I logged into this account. I typed in my user name. Woohoo almost there. Next was to type in the password, the one that I created that I just KNEW I would not forget but I did. Knowing I could get a recovery email from the server I did so only to be told I had to wait 24 hours for security reasons.  My mouth dropped wide enough to catch flies as I stared blankly into space. Time was of the essence but that did not matter I had to wait until March 17th to get this fixed. I finally got the new password and sent the MS to the publisher on Saturday. The anxiety that was felt in having to wait is indescribable.

This is an excerpt of what the publisher said :

“It is lovely written and without a doubt Jasper, Amazon Parrot, will entertain and educate young readers with his adventure in the Rainforest. We would love to review the entire manuscript.”

Gosh I don’t care how many times I read this, giddiness envelopes me. Bottom line where ever this goes, the fact someone thought the above makes me squeal inside and out.