Submitting a Manuscript

Writing a story is a BIG DEAL!

A very, very big deal!

And finishing it is even bigger.

So before we go any further, take a sec to pat yourself on the back. 

For reals, do it.

Now, what to do with that beautiful, glorious, amazing new story? 

I'd written a number of stories before I decided it was time to publish. When I finished Bake Believe, I could feel it in my soul, this was the one. 

So - trust your intuition. It's real.

I knew I wanted to try and publish with an actual publisher. I have nothing against self-publishing, in fact, I've self-published a number of short stories. For me, finding a publisher was part of my dream of being published. 

The first thing I did was a google search for publishers that will accept unsolicited manuscripts. 

Unsolicited means without an agent.

We'll talk more about agents later. 

I made a list of the publishing companies that were the best fit for my book, then I very very carefully went through their submission guidelines one by one. This is super important! 

My father-in-law has been an HR manager for years. He told me when he receives an application he immediately scans it for certain things. 

More than one page. 

Single spaced. 

Certain fonts.

A resume gets thrown in the trash before it's even read if it doesn't follow the company guidelines. 

A book submission is the same way. 

Some publishers are very specific, down the font type and margins. Make sure you follow their guidelines so you don't hit the slush pile before you're even read!

Next, I chose my top five and sent my manuscript to them. 

I already decided ahead of time what I would do when I got rejections. I prepared myself for it to happen and then what to do next. For every rejection, I would send the manuscript to the next three on my list.

That was key!

When rejections came, I didn't even feel sad. I just reminded myself my book wasn't for everyone - but it was for someone, then I sent it to the next three. 

Then Immortal Works Press picked it up. That was an amazing day!

I really believe that happened because I refused to get upset or give up and because I was prepared for rejections. The truth is, if you NEVER never never give up, you reach your goals eventually. The only way to fail is to quit.

So, when you are ready to submit that beautiful manuscript, make a plan. 

Be persistent. 

Have your own back and your story's back. 

Keep trying until you reach your goal, whatever that might be.

You can totally do this!

The Journey Begins

 My whole life my big writing goal has been to become a published author. 

I accomplished that, yay! Thank you, Immortal Works! And now I realize I need a new goal. It's no good to live without stretching. So, this year I decided to try my hand at making a living as an author. 

I don't know if that's possible for me, I've never done it. 

But I am super excited to find out if I can. 

This blog was an assignment for an entrepreneur class I took in 2021. There are some good posts I left to motivate and inspire, but the rest will have the new purpose of documenting my journey toward building a career as an author. 

It will probably read like a journal, or a catalog of do's and don't's. I think that's okay. I hope there will be valuable information on these pages that will help others on their author journey. And I know it will be a boon to me to have a place where I organize all the things I try.

So, let the journey begin! 

No Islands Here

 In the movie, 'The Lion King', Simba's father told him that we are all connected in this great circle of life. Similarly, Sister Marjorie Hinckley once said, "Oh, how we need each other." It is impossible to get through this life without touching anyone. 

We influence and are influenced. 

No man is an island.

And no man succeeds from relying on his own genius. That's actually pretty funny when I stop and think about it. Even the smartest humans are subject to humanity. We get angry, frustrated, tired, hangry and then we do not think clearly. We for sure don't act from our highest and bestest self. 

Which means, a periodic look at where we are and how we got there is super powerful. 

Once I decided to be grateful for food. 

Not just gratefeul - but GRATEFUL. I closed my eyes and imagined all the people who worked to make sure I had cute little packages of boneless chicken breasts to purchase at my local grocery store. 

So many people. 

The farmers who grow the grain that the chickens eat. The breeders who house and feed the chickens. The butchers who slice and dice and separate. The people who man the machines that package and label. Also, the people who thought to invent the machines and the mechanics who made it happen. The people who invented refrigeration and shrink wrap and styrafoam and all their workers and supplies. The drivers of the trucks that ship the chicken to my nearest store. The people who work at gas stations, maintain the vehicles and run the trucking companies. The people who build the store, supplied materials, work the registers....

I could go on. 

That's a LOT of people. A lot-lot of people. Just for the chicken. 

We are where we are because a lot of people did a lot of things to help us along the way. That's not even considering God - to whom we owe EVERYTHING. 

What's the point? 

Gratitude. 

Gratitude is the point of everything. We have so much to be grateful for. We are, all of us, so very blessed. 

We are, none of us, alone in this tabernacle of clay. We all have a mission, a duty to perform. 

Let's help each other. 

And be grateful.  

Small and Simple Things

 I recently read an article about exercise in the middle ages. 

That came out weird. It wasn't about how people exercised in the Middle Ages, it was about how middle-age people exercise! :) 

Basically it was informing those who may not have noticed, that the body goes through some significant changes around the forties and things that worked, health-wise, before are probably not going to work the same as they used to. 

The thing that stood out most in this article is that a person will reach optimal health BETTER (not faster) by doing small and simple, daily, consistent actions towards optimal health then they will by crash dieting or working out hardcore two or three times a week. Example, a daily twenty minute walk will have better long-term results than doing Insanity for an hour twice a week. 

Essentially building the habits necessary for the results desired is how to reach optimal health. 

This is not news people. 

But, I was mind bombed for a couple days. So, like, it's better to do a five minute barre workout every day in a week then to run out of time most days and do a thirty minute workout only two days?

Really?

Really really. 

Not only did I put that to test and feel the difference, but the same thing is taught in the scriptures and by business gurus and at seminars and on and on. 

Small, consistent action is better then big, sporadic action. 

I love this so much. 

It's actually EASY to carve out five minutes to do anything. You can do anything for five minutes. Rather than put things off for the perfect time, commit to five minutes. Not only are you on the way to a consistent habit, but, chances are once you start doing that thing you didn't think you had time or energy to do, you will keep at it for longer than five minutes. 

That is one small concept that has some seriously big ramifications. 

You Gotta Have a Dream

In the musical, South Pacific, they sing a song about happy thoughts. One line says, 'you've got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream, how you gonna make a dream come true?'

I think about this a lot. 

Dreaming big is my FAVORITE thing to do. I love to imagine things different then they are. I love to play with what something could be if there were no reservations, expenses and I didn't have to be remotely realistic, the way little kids dream. They honestly think they can do anything. Somewhere along the road of life, some of us got dragged to the dust by too much reality. If we could let that go and tap into the little kid inside us, who thinks anything is possible, I truly think we could accomplish anything. 

The downside to how much I love dreaming is that I sometimes forget to add a plan of action to the dream. It's just so fun to imagine and plan. I think the people who accomplish their dreams are the people who, #1 NEVER stop dreaming and #2 turn those dreams into actionable plans. 

I've mentioned before that I've wanted to be a published writer since I was a kid. But I also wanted to be a famous actress. The actress thing died out as I got older, without me even missing it all that much, but the writing thing never did. I've wondered about that. Maybe I saw things in the acting world I didn't really agree with or want to participate in. Maybe I realized how hard it would be to reach my other, bigger, goals of having a family and serving in the church if I lived a Hollywood life. Not to mention the difficult of trying to break into that business.

I wonder why I let reality crush the actress goal, but never listened to it when it tried to crush the writing goal. Even when it was painfully obvious publishing was not going to come easy I never gave up, I never gave in. 

Maybe that's the difference between a goal and a passion. 

I see how much good I can do in my sphere by writing uplifting, wholesome, fun books. I see how much good it does me to write stories that focus on what's working in the world instead of what isn't. I see kids that walk around with my book tucked under their arm or curled up on the couch bursting out laughing while they read. I know what I do is important. I feel pushed and I feel sustained. 

I think I'm exactly where I need to be. 

Author-preneur

 No one ever told me that writing and publishing books means starting a business! 

To be fair, someone might have mentioned it at some point. I was probably too busy daydreaming plot outlines to really take it in. Regardless, it was a bit of a surprise when I received the contract for my first novel and saw the listed requirements.

Here are the specifics that threw me the most loopy: 

Social Media Presence - including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook - with regular posts: At the time, I had a facebook account that I used maybe once a month, had a vague idea what Instagram was and I totally had to google Twitter. And regular posts? What the what was I supposed to post about?

A website: Used them, yes. Building one was another story. 

(ha, see what I did there?)

Goodreads account: I had one I set up years ago, but hadn't updated in probably three years.

Not to mention Book Marketing, Building a Brand, Creating Content, and Finding My Readers.

That last sentence might as well have been written in Taiwanese. Yeah, no idea.

Good news though, no man is an island. There is TONS of help for anyone trying to start anything. Besides mentors, friends and classes, there's YouTube! You can learn pretty much anything on YouTube.

YouTube can teach you how to charm a snake, magically fold clothes, sing the alphabet backwards, stack dice with cups, smoke tuna using toilet paper, bake a sloth cake, make kombacha - should I go on? I think we get the point, yeah?

There are a gazillion and one ways to learn how to do anything you want to do, and starting a business - specifically as an author - is no exception. I've come a long way since I read through my first contract with a highlighter, making sure I knew what I was supposed to do. I've figured out most of the things. Enough to know that there is never going to be a point when I'm going to have all the things figured out! 

And you know what? That's totally okay. I love learning, I love staying curious, I love taking classes and I love seeing all the different ways something can be done, then choosing what works best for me. Like anything else - Authorpreneuring is a journey!

Cori's Story

 I've been telling stories since I could talk; that's not the same thing as lying by the way! I LOVE stories. Reading them, writing them, hearing them, living them - all the thems! I've wanted to be a writer since as long as I can remember. In elementary school our teacher would have us make books out of cardboard and wallpaper scraps, then fill the empty, lined pages with words. That was my first publishing adventure and let me tell you, it was magical! 

I tried to publish my first novel right after my third baby was born. My timing wasn't impeccable, but the desire to live my dream bubbled inside me like shook soda. It was pre-internet, you know, back in the dark ages, so I printed and mailed my manuscript to as many publishers as I could find that would take a manuscript unsolicited. (That's without an agent.) My hopes were sky high and totally dashed. 

It takes a lot of time to write a book, not to mention all the other stuff, waiting and rejections and editing and rewrites and the tears. There were many, in case you were wondering. I was spending A LOT of time and not seeing any dream fulfillment going down. One especially low day, when baby four was just a few weeks old, I sat in the middle of a mess of toys, watching my littles play and cuddling my baby. All I could think was - what the heck I was doing?  I was so wrapped up in this publishing dream, I was missing out on reality.

I was missing everything. 

That afternoon I packed up all my manuscripts and story ideas, closed the lid on that box and stuck it in a dark corner of my closet. I let my dream sleep and I played with my kids. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. (marrying my husband was the first, and buying an ice cream maker is for sure on that list). I've never regretted sacrificing that time for my family.

When my baby went to Kindergarten, I dusted off my dreams and started submitting manuscripts again, electronically this time - it was many years later! Only a little over a month after I started, I received a request to publish one of my books - Bake Believe. 

My dream come true!

Now I live my dream during the free moments while my kids are at school and my husband is working. It is the funnest thing in the world to publish books and I feel beyond blessed for the opportunity to tell my stories. In fact, I think the reason I'm in the position I'm in now, writing and publishing, is BECAUSE I sacrificed that time all those years ago.

Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of Heaven, right?