Thanks to all who offered their congratulations.
Harry:
I can't profess to know much about the writing process or querying, but I can tell you a little about my dumb luck in getting this all to happen.
My only other attempt at a novel was right out of high school. I spent six years on the effort before abandoning it to concentrate on the woman who would become my wife. Thirty-eight years ago, writing didn't come very easy to me, and I have not looked at the novel since for fear of the cringe factor.
Now, I have always liked westerns since I was a little kid and in keeping with that, every year when my family and I go on vacation we have always stopped in at one of those old time photo places and had a family picture done in period western garb. That was always my vacation souvenir and I have a whole living room wall covered with these portraits, along with an 1871 Richard-Mason Army Colt conversion model revolver next to them.
A couple of years ago, a friend and I attended a professional conference together. This friend happens to be the most interesting gentleman I have ever met and we are good friends (turns out, we are distant cousins-there is a long and unique story behind that). For some time, I had wanted to have a picture done with the two of us in period western garb-just something to look at in the future to remember our friendship by. The chance finally came at this conference and I talked him into doing it with me. Reluctant as he was, he actually got quite a kick out it and he has his copy of the picture on display at his home.
A few months later, I got to looking at the picture and thinking there had to be a story behind it somewhere, so I sat down and stared to write it. At this point it was strictly for my own amusement and the amusement of my buddy, and I had no thoughts of ever publishing it. When I finished it, I gave it to my friend who read it and surprised me by saying he thought it was publishable. I wasn't convinced, as it was a bit short (45,000 words) and I didn't think anyone but the two of us would have any interest in the story. By then, though, writing had become such a hobby I didn't quite know what to do with myself now that I was finished with it and had so much spare time (an unfortunate long period of unemployment kept me from pursuing more expensive hobbies). That being the case, I decided to write a companion piece (really a sequel) and the second half of the novel was born.
What is interesting to me is that many of the small throwaway details I included in the first story actually wound up playing a part in the second story. There was no planning on my part for this to happen as I had no plans for the second story when I wrote the first. Funny how dumb luck sometimes accounts for how things manage to converge into a coherent whole. It makes me wonder how often this happens for other writers, especially when we sit down and analyze their work and find things we are just certain the author intentionally put together. How much of it is simply coincidence, or luck, if you will?
Anyway, luck intervened again when I happened to get an offer on AW from a retired professor of English (and small firearms expert-how convenient for me!) to beta/critique my work in exchange for the same on his manuscript. This was a boon for me as he had done professional editing in his career. I am not so sure I was as helpful to him, being a novice, though.
After his help and encouragement, I decided to see if the story really did have any commercial appeal so I began searching for publishers and agents who accepted westerns, saddened to find that very few did. Determined not to blow my chances at getting published, I spent a lot of time researching the querying process and how to write a good query. I seem to be fairly decent at writing ad copy (I guess there is a little P.T.l Barnum in me) so I didn't find that too difficult. More difficult was wading through all the formatting differences and summary lengths you had to conform to to submit to anyone. Every package had to be tweaked a little to meet the different submission requirements and I found that to be very daunting to have to spend so much time at it.
Naturally, I got rejections, ranging from "I don't think there is enough action in the first chapter" to "The wife in the flashback is a mere cypher," all reflecting each agent's or editor's particular tastes. (The one about the wife being a cypher really got me--of course she was. You can't devote twenty pages of a short flashback to develop a character who plays no part of the main story when the intent was only to provide a little insight into the MC.) I did appreciate the time each took to illuminate what they thought was wrong with the manuscript, but I didn't necessarily agree with what they said and i didn't jump up and revise to try and please half a dozen different reader preferences either. Having written the story originally for my own amusement was a great help in dealing with the rejections as I could always rationalize that I had never intended to please anyone but myself. If that sounds like golden word syndrome or vanity, it is not. I still worry about whether readers will like it, but knowing I like it myself took the sting out of the rejections and didn't make it seem like the end of the world if it didn't get published.
Please don't get the idea that I didn't do a lot of editing to try and improve the quality of the work. I used most of the advice my critique partner gave, plus every time I ran across one of those writing "rules" on AW, I would go back and edit to a degree (I didn't go overboard with these "rules" but did some changes as a concession to the conventions). Often times, I would think of a better way to say something or add to the dialogue or narrative after the fact and made those changes. Redundancy with certain words was a problem after it was pointed out to me by my critique partner/editor, so I worked on that even though others never noticed when they read through it (which leads me to believe the average reader tends not to notice a lot of things fellow writers are critical of).
One of the more frustrating aspects of the editing was when the historical facts necessitated some changes after I found out the story didn't match certain facts. The most annoying one was when I found out that my backwards state had enacted the first prohibition law in the U.S. Finding that out required me to push my timeline back five years before the one I would have preferred. Changes like this would then set off a whole cascade of additional changes in other parts of the book, all of which had to be located and brought in line with the changed premise or fact. All in all, to say I have read each line of my work at least three hundred times would not be much of an exaggeration at this point.
After continuing to search for western publishers, I ran across Western Trail Blazer and sent them the manuscript. To my delight, the owner of the imprint liked the story and was excited to bring it to market. And I must say, they are a pleasure to work with, a terrific bunch of people who have gone out of their way to accommodate me for I have continued to make edits right up to the week before it was put out in eBook format.
As for the cover, they were willing to work with my ideas and their cover artist put the elements all together. I think she did a great job with the idea and it came out pretty much how I had envisioned it. I went for something a little less conventional than the usual western cover and I hope others will find it interesting as well. My only hope is that the old time photo which spawned the whole thing is small enough that no one can recognize me in it. I didn't want this to seem like a vanity thing but since I wrote a whole scenario where the two MCs have their picture made by the town photographer in the saloon, and the photo plays a role in the second part, it seemed appropriate for it to be there. Needless to say though, it is a bit embarrassing to be a model on your own book cover.
So there it is, probably more than anybody wanted to know and more than I intended to write. I think maybe I am just trying to avoid having to work on the audiobook this afternoon, but I can't put it off any longer. Hope this was not too boring for anyone.
Thanks again to all who commented.