There are various points at which I could begin but for the purpose of answering the main question that I get: "How did you get a publishing contract?", I'll start at the point after which I had already self-published ROAM.
In fact, by the time I received my first publishing offer, I had already self-published four books. I knew that I wanted to seek out a traditional publisher as well and had sent out a couple of query letters which were rejected. One to a publishing company that responded that my book wasn't "what we're looking for right now" and one to an agent that auto-replied that they didn't have time to review new queries. A lot of authors get a ton of rejections so I wasn't too upset but their responses made me decide to take some time to research querying a little more and just focus on self-publishing for a while.
In 2017, a year after I had stopped querying (it was perpetually on my "I'll get to it eventually" list), I ended up having a very unfortunate summer in which I broke my foot and was laid off from my job as a graphic designer where I had worked for nearly ten years. The boredom of the recovery process and my overall "What have I got to lose?" mentality spurred me into action. I spent time researching publishing companies that I thought would be a good fit for my M/M Paranormal novel, ROAM, and also freshened up my query letter.
I decided that NineStar Press would be the best place to start and I sent in my submission. Three weeks later, I received an offer and the next day I was signing my first publishing contract!
I recognize that not every author gets an offer so easily. I do feel that perhaps the stars aligned in my favor at that time because if I hadn't been injured and entering unemployment then I probably wouldn't have felt the drive to go outside of my comfort zone and take that next step. I also feel that I had more success the second time around because I did do my research on finding an appropriate publisher for my story and updating my query letter. If you'd like for me to go more in depth about writing query letters then please let me know in the comments and I'll work it into a post!
I sent in my submission to NSP for HUNTER shortly before ROAM released and it was accepted as well. I definitely plan to submit my manuscript to them for the third book and anything else I write that I feel would be in alignment with their company as they have been a pleasure to work with.
I also plan to continue self-publishing certain titles. If you'd like to learn more about my self-publishing process, let me know that in the comments as well!
Thanks for reading and I wish you all the best of luck with your own creative journeys!
- Dez
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- If you're interested in my daily life, what I'm reading, and writerly musings, you can also follow me on Instagram and Twitter.
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