All right, more advice. This time from a fellow aspiring writer, who might not have much experience, but wants you to succeed.
Anyways, the pros around here would correct me if I’m wrong, so the both of us would learn.
So here are my two cents and a half. (I'm sorry about the long post) I hope it helps.
75,000 words? That’s too much work to give it up.
Have you read recently published books similar to the one you are trying to write?
Before giving it away online, you should wait a couple of weeks, then print it in a different font and read it. By then your brain might be tricked into thinking someone else wrote it. You got to be honest with yourself. And you will be able to see, if it’s worthy or not, and the changes it needs.
Sometimes it’s not the plot, but the way the story is being told.
You should seriously consider before giving it away for free. Another possibility is to post it here in AW, inside the
Share Your Work forum, the password is vista.
If you still think it should be publish online in a more public place, I suggest you do it in a fiction site where you can get feedback from readers. Just get ready for what it might come your way.
My first four stories were posted in one of those sites, thanks to the readers's feedback I decided to take writing seriously. That first story got 3,277 readings with 132 positive reviews. Which is average for that site. My other ones got even more. However, there is one I regret posting there. Why, so far it got 17,256 readings with 589 reviews. That was the one who made me think, I could write. It’s particular flattering when some readers write to you, telling that they stayed up all night; just to read what you wrote.
Still there is a long way from self published online for free, to being published by a publisher.
You got a great idea for a story, I don’t know if is just me, but it touched me deeply.
Let me explain why. I was a teen in the 90’s and like your main character I related to my beloved with music. By the 1996 and up I always bought two copies of the same CDs, one for him the other for me. After our tragic break up, I spent years without being able to listen to music. Yes, it was that painful.
I’m sure, I’m not the only one who can relate to your story in a similar way.
The following comments are from reading just the query, and trying to figure the story from it. So I could be way wrong in my assumptions.
I think the story is not the problem, but from where you began to tell it. In what you focus. The time when they met, the romance they lived is important for the story, but the story, if is romance (even chick lit) should be about the main characters.
What matters is not what took place in the past, but what is going to take place in the future, that is what would keep possible readers reading. The readers want to know what happened, but you can’t give it to them in one single chunk, it needs be fed little by little. I would write it from the moment Norielle got the CD, her reactions, and her intrigue for knowing his motives, etc. What does he wants from her today, for example.
Reading the query it seemed a story about music of the 1990s. As much as I loved that music, and those times, I would not buy a book just to read about it.
Now, and this is another example, I would buy a book about a couple that shared those times, reunited in the present, and had lived, changed, evolved, almost to the point to be strangers. They think to know each other, but they really don’t. The conflict between them has to be current for me to care.
Another thing to consider is that readers can't hear the songs that inspired you, and you can't use the lyrics in your work. So the only thing you can tell about from the music is the feelings that sprang from it.
And the hardest part for me to tell you. Girl, you need a new title. Seriously, you do. Something that could catch the possible readership’s interest, inviting them to read the blur.
I suggest leaving out any reference to another writer’s work too.
Your work is unique, you don’t want anybody mistaking your novel with fan-fiction, right?
If the editor later want to put those references in the blur, which I doubt, is up to him/her.
Speaking of blurs, the query could be more like one. It should be about the main characters, their inner conflicts, their reactions to see each other again, maybe a little suspense why he contacted after all these years.
Did you query only agents? Why don’t you try the publishers directly?
Ours is a craft only learned by practice, so keep writing.
), so instead of locking it away in a closet, I am going to post it on my blog. 
, then feel free to stop by!
