Putting It Out There, Some More

Saturday, April 17, 2021

I was able to steamroll through the rest of the list of publishers today. Sadly, a couple of the big dogs were like, you cannot submit any work to us. We will not entertain it, if you send it because, well, who are you really? You need to go through an agent……………..

Okay then. On to the next one. Later for you — at least for now. I was told by a friend that agents don’t cost any money but that they earn a commission if/when they locate a publisher. Regardless, I want to make a concerted effort with this on my own first. Even if/when I land a publisher, that will only represent the beginning of the next stage in what may end up being a very arduous process. I am not sure I want that stress, especially if Blurb comes through for me in terms of quality and presentation. I am still wondering if I should have just gone with one of their templates and “plugged in” the photos. But a part of me knows that that isn’t the way to go…and there would be no guarantee that I would be able to include the amount of text that Jan Stacy produced. Nope, a custom job is required. Or am I just that person who has to complicate everything? (It’s probably both.)

So one of the publishers I submitted the proposal to today was: The History Press (which is part of Arcadia Publishing, I think). They publish the historic books about different towns: I have one about my town and my parents have one about theirs. It’s a great coffee table conversation book but on the small side and it wouldn’t be the right format for Tugs. Nonetheless, the company publishes a lot of maritime texts. Anyways, instead of sending a direct email, I was simply directed to fill in a few fields with basic subject & contact information. I had the option to attach a doc (which I did) and then, after clicking Submit, the following message was displayed: “Thank you for submitting your inquiry. Someone from our acquisitions team will be in contact with you shortly.” I wish I knew what “shortly” actually means to them. But it has given me a glimmer of hope that I might get a response (positive or negative) sooner than the 9-12 week (or never) timeframe that other publishers state quite explicitly in more than one place. (They might as well place the info in CAPS with boldface italics that are underlined.)

I have to remind myself that I am a patient woman. After all, I am married. And I have two kids. And a puppy dog. And a mix of type 3c/4a fine textured high density curly hair. And elderly parents and in-laws all within a 5 mile radius. Patience with a capital P. But also lucky, very very Lucky.