Release Day Is Here

Ah, release day. The day I have been looking forward to since I started writing my first novel over three years ago. What a day, what a day. It’s nice to look upon a 3D mockup of my book and think, “This is not simply an imaginary image from a free website chock full of ads. It represents something real.”

A computer-generated image of a book I wrote.

The path from starting a book to escape the daily trauma of watching my son have seizures to the day of the book actually coming out has had a lot of ups and downs. A very large up, actually the largest of all ups, was that within months of starting the book my son’s seizures got under control. It was not the magic switch that I sometimes imagined, where stopping his seizures would end all his medical needs and developmental delays. But it did allow him to move forward. And he continues to move forward at a steady pace. Most important of all–he is happy. Every single day he shows us that he loves us and that he loves life. The ever-present fire in his mind that stole his ability to smile and live without suffering has been subdued. Now he gets to make his way in the world.

Still, there were a lot of things to navigate for me to finish my first draft. Our nursing schedule at home was a little all over the place. Sometimes we only had someone to help for a couple of days a week, and with errands and the general desire to simply get away, it was hard to sit down and type. On writing days I was usually able to block out a couple of hours and sit myself down at a coffee shop (or oddly enough a bar that happened to serve coffee) and get work done. I shot for a thousand words per session. Over the months, more nurses came and the writing got more productive week over week. In all, it took a year plus a few months to get the first draft finished.

Then, the next steps…

Revisions and Rejections

Ah, the memories! I’ll spare you the narcissistic details of what parts of the book I added and changed. Though I will say that there were a lot of work-throughs, and still more mistakes to fix that I’m actually a bit embarrassed about making. But whatever, you’ll never see all that. You get to find mistakes in the final published book, you lucky duck!

In addition to writing a novel, I also wanted to have it published. Yes, that may sound a bit egotistical, but printer paper is expensive and I couldn’t afford to make copies for all of my friends.

Thus began the years-long process of rejections!

A still from querytracker.net. It’s a very good site, don’t let my rejections fool you.

To publish a book traditionally, I wanted to find an agent. I’m going to cut to the chase now and say that I did not secure an agent with my current novel. In fact, as you can see in the image above, I received over 200 rejections. This is not to say that agents did not request to read my entire manuscript. I did succeed in getting manuscript requests. In fact, I got enough requests that I feel I succeeded in that regard.

Of course, I am always willing to sign with an agent if I have work that would be a good fit. But the fact is that not every book is going to be right for the entire traditional process. I have consoled myself with the thought that my book may or may not succeed at my narrative goal of combining an almost pulp-like action style with the emotional struggle of healthcare and helping a loved one through a medical condition. I feel like I succeeded, but that doesn’t mean the path to sell the book was clear. In agenting, the agent needs to both love the book and see a path forward with it.

Getting Published

There are a lot of great books written by authors who don’t have agents.

Again…

There are a lot of great books written by authors who don’t have agents.

My goal was to write a book, and after all that work I wasn’t just going to let it sit in my Google folder collecting cyber-dust. After querying agents (yeah, you “query” them), I moved on to publishers that took queries directly from authors. Keep in mind, I always could have self-published. I had a plan for that as well, I just wanted to go the route that got me editing and stylistic help without paying for it. Pitching my book was always free so I felt I had to take it as far as I could.

Long story short, I found a publisher who wanted to take on my book and they made today happen. The Wild Rose Press agreed to sign me, all thanks to an editor that liked my manuscript and advocated for it. That’s how my book found a home.

Now It’s Release Day

I’m trying to take pride in the basic accomplishment of being published, but that fact doesn’t do a lot of good if people don’t know that the book exists. This is the process where I’m losing my mind a little bit. Finding reviewers, tweeting about my book, and working on any coverage can be a frustrating process. There are a lot of passionate people dedicating a lot of their time to get the word out about books they enjoy, and there are many of us authors trying to get on their radars. I’ve been doing a lot of digital hoofing around blogs, reaching out, and pitching my narrative wares.

It feels very much like querying all over again. Is my book good enough? Is the blurb okay? Did I shoot myself in the foot by choosing the plot I did? What if nobody likes it? Why are the reviews taking so long?

And so on.

It’s a mind trap that basically goes nowhere because many of the resolutions to these questions involve waiting.

When I get overwhelmed by the tasks at hand, I try to take a break and do a Google search that has taken years to return:

Thanks, Google.

That shit is real right there. That exists because I put in the work and other people believed in it. The title of this site is “Author” Matthew Wilcox, and that will be true forever and always. Even after my domain expires and the site redirects to a men’s lingerie wholesaler in Taiwan. They and I both agree–dreams do come true, baby.