Okay, I can see how this might not belong in the MG forum BUT... it is related for me.

Not being able to work is really difficult. I've worked for myself all my life and so, my resume is non-existent. Oh, I could probably throw one together but I'm living in a farming community with 15% unemployment and about the only thing available is farm work....and that job as a fry cook at some fast food joint that would prefer an 18 yo kid instead of his granddad. So I've been trying to figure out what I could do as my family falls deeper into this financial hole awaiting social security.

Lot's of time on my hands and no strength...so I wrote a book. Writing it is the easy part - getting published as an unknown author in a competitive market is the impossible part. Then I sent it out to a publisher and began the four to six week waiting period to hear back from him. On Sunday morning, four days later, I awoke to an e-mail. This is what it said:

"Wow. I couldn't wait till Monday. Transformational. It changed my life. Absolutely, yes. A contract is on the way."

I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to feel useful again. Tears as I write this...

That's fantastic, Angell!!

What's the book about?

Make sure you read that contract thoroughly. Sometimes you want to keep the option of taking your book to the e-pub world as well. You need to retain control of all of your rights.

I've written a book as well, which I'm redoing a bit an is in final edits. It's about doctoring.

It's useful, if you do an e-book, to have ISBN and LCCN numbers.

I hope it's a huge success!

Annie

Hi Annie! (First thank you for your comments on the exercise thread too)

It is a spiritual allegory for young adults. I've described it as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe meets the Karate Kid.

I'm rather fortunate in this particular journey because it is my second book and I've been through the publishing process before - albeit with an entirely different type of book. I mentioned above that I worked for myself all my life - that book was basically a how-to book and the market was screaming for them when I wrote it. Demand got that book published, not an innate ability to write.

In fact, I'd be prepared to say that I am a fantastic storyteller but a horrid writer. 'Horrid' might be too harsh. So too, might 'fantastic'. I'm pretty certain that he was so enthralled with the story that he failed to see the bad writing.

I'm doing the final edits now myself. I actually wrote a very clean first copy and it poured out of me. 102K words in twenty-nine days - and that's the copy I sent to the publisher. It was probably 95%+ finished copy - which I suspect is odd - but remember, I'm not a good writer. If I knew what I was doing I'd probably spend an entire draft simply fixing split infinitives. As it is, I don't even know what they are - I just heard them referenced recently.

Are you going to self-publish yours or send it out?

Congratulations! That's fantastic! I've read how difficult it is to get published in our day and age with e-books, etc That makes it even more amazing!