I spent years trying to get an agent to represent my novel. I did my research on which agents might be appropriate, who had represented authors I love, who was looking for new clients. I tried to pull any connections I could think of, and fine-tuned my query letter again and again. All in search of the holy grail of getting an agent who would unlock the door to the traditional publishing world. I knew my novel was good enough. It was certainly better than a lot of the crap that gets published nowadays. Why wouldn’t someone want to publish my book?

Every query generated the hope and anticipation that this would be the one, the fantasies of success. Initially, I had some bites. I had a total of eight agents request the full manuscript. One of these responded a few weeks later saying she was half way through and “just loving it”. But one-by-one these agents ultimately declined to take me on. It’s wonderful, but not quite right for me at this time. I love it, but it’s so hard to sell fiction right now.  A few said it was too slow or too long. So I shortened it, re-wrote it, revised it again. Sent out new queries.

I understand that rejections are part of the writing life. I have had stories and essays rejected by twenty literary journals before finally getting accepted for publication.  But let’s not deny that it’s exhausting and demoralizing.  I gave up. I shifted my energy to writing more short stories and then began another novel.

Then, more than a year later, two friends asked to read the book. Both were long-time friends but this was a coincidence; they live 6,000 miles apart. And okay, they are friends, so of course they are going to say nice things about my work. But they were enthusiastic, and they both encouraged me to try again to get this novel out into the world.

That’s when I connected with the Path to Publishing program at the Book Passage in Corte Madera, California, one of my favorite bookstores. I had attended workshops there in the past, and spent many hours browsing among the shelves. Now they were establishing a program which seemed tailor-made just for folks like me. They put on a full-day workshop which covered everything: all the options for editing, cover design, the different publishing models, distribution, marketing, the whole shebang. I met with Sam Barry, the program coordinator, and he recommended I start with hiring a developmental editor.

Pamela Feinsilber was amazing. After reading my novel, she met with me for almost three hours, and gave me a document with twenty pages of suggestions. My head was spinning. She felt I needed to re-write the early chapters, start the action in an earlier period in my protagonist’s life. Which made sense to me. I had never been completely happy with the opening section.  But OMG… did I have the energy or the ability to do that?

I took her notes with me on vacation to Alaska, and read and re-read them as I sat on the porch of our cabin with a view of Mt. Denali, and scribbled some ideas about how to go about one more round of revision. By the time I returned home, I was energized. A few months later, I had another draft. I decided to give myself six months of querying agents, both some who had shown interest in the past, and new possibilities I found. Then it would be time to explore other options.