Behind the Scene’s

I have found, with my history in religious experiences, I tend to combine religion with my favorite genre, Horror. I have started a few books on different topics, but never finish them, losing interest fairly quickly.

The first book I wrote, and stuck to, was a young adult religious thriller/horror. It is the story of a teen girl, her brother, her pregnancy, and how all will effect the future of the human race. It is a rather short story, only 47,000 words, with it leading into a second and third book. Though I loved writing it and finished the first draft in less than 2 months, I haven’t been able to make myself start book two of the series. This is not because I’ve lost interest, but because what to do next after finishing your manuscript is daunting.

Query letters, which I knew NOTHING about, are a scary thing. Bio’s are a difficult process for me because like many introvert writers, I do NOT like talking about myself and couldn’t be more nervous than standing naked in front of thousands of people having to give a presentation without my note cards. Lol.

I did a lot of reading when it came time to writing the query letters. I truly had no idea about what my target audience would be, how to explain the book without giving away too much, or what exactly the publishers wanted to see in the query letter to bother opening the pages enclosed. Research was the key.

After figuring out a basic and generic query letter for my first book, I started sending out letters to agents and publishers. I had many many letters returned with uninterested publishers. I put it aside for nearly 6 years and didn’t think much of it afterwards. I took the rejections hard. Learning only recently how hard skinned you need to be to be a writer looking to be published. I recently began querying publishers again. One of the worst things that could possibly happen, soon happened.

It seemed to be my dreams come true when I got a response saying they were interested. Knowing nothing about publishing, I didn’t see the warning signs. I received a letter of interest, accompanying a contract for me to sign. I later found the contract was completely unprofessional, the manuscript was not what the company publishes, and you should NEVER pay for any kind of service from a publishing company, with the exception of pre query letter editing of your manuscript.

As I began working with the publishing company, the contract stated they would have me published in three months. Nearly 6 months later, my book was still not published. When I expressed my concern, and the obvious breach of contract, the company began first blaming me, and after 2 days of continuous wicked emails, ended up threatening to sue me for slander. I was shocked and out $475 for what they called cover design costs. At the end they revoked the contract, refused to reimburse me, and the legal battle begins. The district attorney is taking the case thankfully and I’m moving on from the experience.

This did two things, made me very weary of sending the manuscript to ANY other publishers, and made me lose all interest in the book in question. I associated it with all the horrible experiences I went through. After a few months, I began cautiously sending query letters again for the book. Finally I got a response that I was excited about. A publisher, who I researched this time, was interested in the book.

During my waiting period, a new project, my current project began growing in my mind. Soon it was too strong to ignore and I began writing again. This is another religious horror with more adult nature and graphic scenes. I couldn’t even think about the other series because this story was burning inside. As I continue to write the current work in progress, I wait for the first book to be published. The differences in the writing are amazing to me. There is much more detail in the current book, this is my first experience with an outline as a guide, and this one is definitely a longer book. I feel that this will also have a second, possibly third book when I’m done with it.