How do you take rejection?

Hmmmm! Let me see about this. Well, I usually take it fairly well according to the situation. As an author you’ve got to learn that a little rejection is coming your way one day. It’s sad but true.

When I started publishing my work, I was afraid of rejection from family and friends. I was more afraid of what they’d think than the world. For a long time most of my family and friends were not aware I’d published any books. One day my mom showed my aunt one of my paperbacks and she had a fit. Now she’s a fan.

If you pitch your work to a large publisher, well, you guessed it, you get get one of those nice little form letters that explains why they can’t publish your work. Some of the better publishers give you advice on what would make it better and would possibly change their mind. I pitched one of mine to a big publisher and well, I never got anything. Not sure, but I’d call that a rejection. I prefer to think maybe they didn’t get it, but a rejection all the same.

You can feel the sting of rejection through self publishing too. This is usually through reviews. Sometimes they hurt, but you just have to remember, it’s not personal. Well, sometimes it feels like it.

Life is feel with rejections, that’s what makes us stronger, I think. You have rejections in your love life, friendships, jobs, promotions, loans, and many areas of your life. The main thing is how you handle that rejection. Do you just dig a hole and put your head in or do you walk proudly and get over it? I try to choose the latter as much as possible, but I have to admit to having dirt in my hair more than once 🙂

So how do you handle it?

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Decisions…Decisions?

We have decisions to make as writers. What’s funny is if you’re a writer then you made a big decision, you decided to be a writer. You may say, ‘I haven’t published anything’, but if you write down what’s in your mind, then you’re a writer.

Here are a couple of decisions to make as a writer:

1: Most importantly – Decide to actually begin writing. Whether it be an unpublished journal or a novel that could be the next big one. If you enjoy it, then go for it.

2: You have to decide if you’re going to make your writing public or just keep it in a drawer for your enjoyment only. I’m really glad I decided to get mine out of a drawer and blow off the dust.

3: After you’ve written your masterpiece (well that’s how we all feel after we’ve finished a manuscript. It may be only us that labels it this, but oh well.) do you try to submit to a traditional publisher and wait and wait and wait and wait some more or do you tackle self publishing it and taking a chance on your own.

4: If you decide on traditional publishing, who do you go with. Well, decide what genre your manuscript best fits, then check into publishers that specialize in your genre. Traditional publishers come in all sizes and needs. I’ve been approached by a couple and I was surprised at the diversity of each one. One guy was so funny that I laughed actually at him, he said ‘we want your book on our team’ then he proceeded to tell me how much money he wanted for the honor of them wanting my book, which was a couple of thousand and that included putting it on the same social media sites I already have them on. NOT! Then you have the publishers that only take a portion of your royalties. Here’s where it gets tricky, do you want to give up 50% or more of your royalties?

5: Do you want to self publish? This is easier than you might think. The self publishing sites available is phenomenal and a statement of how popular this type of publishing is. With this type of publishing you have to be careful when reading the disclaimers, but most of the popular sites are just general and do not your first born up front 🙂

6: Marketing, Marketing, Marketing… As a self publisher you have to do this if you want to be seen. This is where you meet so many wonderful people from all over the world. I’ve enjoyed this part of the whole process so much.

7: Finally, don’t forget the decisions about the book itself. You have the cover, the description, the trailer video pictures, the music for the trailer, etc. It goes on and on and on.

As I always say, this is just the wandering musings of a writer, but hopefully it gives you some food for thought. Each decision you make needs to be met with lots of prayer and contemplation.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…

Staying busy…

Well it’s Wednesday. The work week is half over. Since I’m an Accountant, this is the start of my busy season. With the Fiscal Cliff issue somewhat resolved the IRS has finally released a date that we can start filing some returns. Remember I said some, not all. That could mean a lot of things like angry clients, moody preparers and lots and lots of fun 🙂

As for me, I love this season. I love to be busy. Especially this year with adding published author into the mix. It’s been a real busy ride so far. What with publishing 6 books in 2012 and marketing said 6 books, but I’m not complaining. I met some awesome people along the way. People I would never have met had it not been for my writing. By the way that means you guys 🙂

Someone asked me the other day had being a published author changed me. I laughed hysterically and then said “NO”. Now if I was a bestselling author on the New York Best sellers list, maybe, but probably not then either. I’m just me, a down to earth, country girl, who loves what I do whether it be writing, accounting or ministering to children.

Now that’s the fun one. Have you ever ministered to children? Or even taught children? It’s is so rewarding and stressful at the same time. The rewarding times are watching their faces light up when they get what you’re saying, or in my case when they bring the Savior into their heart. Those smiling faces on Sunday and Wednesday can cheer you up or make you suspicious. Sometimes I can feel really under the weather and just their smiles can have a healing effect. The stressful times can be too much sugar (Yeah I’ve made that mistake, learned lesson), snotty noses, bad manners, and lack of discipline. But if you love working with children the plus far outweighs the minus.

So hope all of you are well in the middle of this week and finding happiness in all you do. Just try to be positive and make even the most tedious task fun. It really makes a difference. 🙂

As always, good writing and May God Bless you.

Self Publishing: Do or Don’t?

I’ve read several posts lately regarding the decision whether to go traditional publisher or do it yourself. It’s a hard question to answer without some investigating your options. That’s what I did before I published my books. Here’s my findings and remember, this is just my experiences and opinions.

When I first decided to publish my books I sent a query letter to a traditional publisher. Well, after several months I didn’t receive a response and I was really wanting to the book out. So, being the person I am, I started looking into other options. I didn’t know a lot about self publishing, but soon I was immersed in the how-to’s. It was an interesting concept. What really impressed me was the royalty rates versus traditional rates.

One of the issues was that in traditional publishing you have someone doing book promos for you and the self publishing market you do it yourself. Being an accountant by trade I wasn’t sure about this. But with more in depth investigating I realized I could do this. Thank goodness my assistant is in college and she is very with working computer magic.

The funny thing is that it was easier than I had ever imagined. I was not a social media butterfly, so easing me into that part of the marketing was extremely funny to my assistant. The first time I received a follower on Twitter I was like, really, someone I don’t even know followed me. She just laughed and rolled her eyes. Since then it’s been crazy. I blog, I tweet and I have my books on every website I can find. My accounting office has turned into publishing central.

We even design our own covers and have gotten some real good reviews on them. I have gotten a couple of calls from traditional publishers wanting me to sign with them. That’s been gratifying but the only thing is some of them want me to pay for their services. I asked one the other day and they are a big publisher, what are you going to do to market my book? Guess what, I was doing the same exact thing they were going to do, and paying thousands less than they wanted to do it.

So, I guess with me, I’ve had a good experience with self publishing. I won’t say that I’ll never go with a traditional publisher, but for now I’m happy with doing it myself. I have been talking with a small publishing company that is interested, but that will be later on. At least with self publishing I can get it out there now, not next year.

Hope this helps you if you’re trying to decide. As always great writing and May God bless you!