- Joined
- Sep 27, 2017
- Messages
- 100
- Reaction score
- 3
okay...you all dragged me back in! it was about ten years ago. i'd been trying to build up my writer profile and credentials by writing for websites and magazines (cover story for THE WRITER magazine...that helped) and had read every 'how to get published' book out there, trying to sell my first novel, and i decided one day to just paste the first chapter of the novel into the body of a email with that last line, 'please give me a shout if you'd like to read more.' within an hour, i was getting a lot of requests for the full mss. i had been working on that story for years and just not having much luck getting someone interested in it with the usual query letter, etc and i was so stunned by the attention, i asked who i was living with then, if she had heard of another writer with my same name. a real writer. ha! i thought it had to be some big mistake. novel was published, was a Book Sense pick, received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly, was a Barnes and Noble Book Club pick, etc. i guess all of that is why i am one to not always follow the rules. my query letter which started all of that broke all the rules. if my recollection is correct, i didn't even have my contact info below my name, etc. sometimes, i think the sunshine just comes through the window just right. only way to explain it. it was the same book i'd been trying to pitch for a long time with little luck. this is advice---don't give up on your stuff!
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