Frustrated By the Publishing Process?

by | Apr 8, 2016 | Articles | 0 comments

Beep. Beep. Beep. You wake up bright and early to the sound of the dreaded alarm clock. First thing, you brew some coffee and grab your computer. It’s a Thursday, so you have to go to work, but you feel compelled to start each day with a bit of writing. You also dutifully edit your manuscript briefly…though by now, you could probably recite it word for word.

One look at your watch and the numbers tell you it’s time to stop daydreaming and start getting ready for the job that actually pays your bills.

During lunch, your mind wanders to where your writing left off. If you could just get the wording right…but your half hour is up.

When the big hand on the clock rolls around to the five, you practically run out the door. You’ve had more than enough insurance talk for one day.

Stepping outside, you see that the clouds rolled in and the promise of rain hangs in the air. What a perfect evening to read a good book. But you just finished Great Expectations by Dickens and are in need of another hearty story.

You make a sharp left turn toward the bookstore, one of your favorite spots. You skim through the aisles. Who will it be tonight? Joyce, Woolf, Eliot, Faulkner? Joyce it is, with A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

On the way out, you can’t help being intrigued by the books so dominantly on display by the door. Just a quick peek…boring, not interested, is this a joke? A series of similar phrases rolls through your head as you quickly scan through these “New Must Reads.” Your manuscript is so much better.

When you arrive home you grab the mail. Bills, bills, and…a letter from that big publisher! Your heart races. This could be it! You must have queried a hundred companies, and finally a response. You tear the envelope in one quick swipe.

“Your manuscript does not fit our current plans.”

Normally, you settle in to read or write again after dinner, but the rejection letter leaves a bitter taste in your mouth that even your favorite meal can’t alleviate. You move your manuscript off the desktop on your computer into a folder titled Old Work, where it begins to collect digital dust.

This scenario is all too common for many writers. At Sahno Publishing, we don’t want that to happen to you. Our goal is to help great, unpublished authors find a wider audience. Learn more at msahno.com.

arrows

Slings and Arrows, Arrows and Slings

Almost two years ago, right at the beginning of the pandemic, I wrote a blog post called Sometimes All You Can Do Is Rock With The Storm. The idea was that, hey, everyone is having a rough time right now, and we’ll likely see more rough times ahead. Knowing that life...
fictional world

Creating a Believable Fictional World

When it comes to writing fiction, many authors sweat the small stuff. "Do I have what it takes to write realistic dialogue?" they wonder. "Am I creating a believable fictional world?" Or, most dire of all, "Will anyone care about my books?" These concerns are all...

How Freelance Writers Can Ditch The Content Mills – And Get Paid What They’re Worth

So today turns out to be a great day for a guest post, since I've got a sprained wrist – time to rest my hands and arms. Without further ado, here's freelancer extraordinaire Tara Malone on how to ditch the content mills! You’re sick and tired of your day job and...
gratitude

Should Every Month Be Gratitude Month?

When I was a kid, I loved Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. I read it daily and collected nearly every paperback volume of the cartoon, so I could see what I’d missed since the comic strip’s inception in 1950.  Certain things stuck: quotes like “happiness is a warm puppy”...
excellence

Literary Excellence and Why Writers Need to Be Readers

Back when I first launched my company, I often used the phrase literary excellence as part of my branding. The idea was that Sahno Publishing evolved out of the notion that literary excellence is more important than a financial formula. The company entered the...
service

What’s It All About, Anyway?

As far as service goes, it can take the form of a million things. To do service, you don't have to be a doctor working in the slums for free, or become a social worker. Your position in life and what you do doesn't matter as much as how you do what you do. —Elisabeth...
coronavirus

Nobody Likes Being Sick—But The Coronavirus Is Making People Scared Of Even Getting Sick

​Readers of this blog undoubtedly know I sometimes create Monday posts geared toward providing helpful info, but also sometimes use it as my personal ranting space. Today's post is the latter, but it's going to be a short one. No, I don't have the coronavirus, but...
coronavirus

Racism In The Time Of Corona

Yesterday I was going to write my usual Monday blog post, but with the coronavirus pandemic, the fact that I’m just getting over a sinus infection, and much-needed appointments with my CPA and chiropractor before we all have to “shelter in place,” I simply didn’t have...
cover design

The Importance of Cover Design and Interior Design for Novels

I think I could be forgiven for not being an expert on either cover or interior design. After all, I studied neither in college. So I hope I'll be forgiven by anyone thinking I have expertise in these subjects. Still, in a world where employers regularly place ads...
cringe

Top Ten Words or Phrases That Make You Cringe

So I've been looking at some topics for blogs, and I find all kinds of great ideas.  One of the more amusing ones is posting about personal stuff or pet peeves, so your readers get to know you better. This idea can work, but it can also be a disaster. I've seen...
self-promotion

What’s The Problem With Shameless Self-Promotion?

While I still find it somewhat hard to believe, I've been on Twitter for almost eight years. I know this not only because Twitter shows Joined March 2015 on my profile but also because, even if they eliminate that feature, I use a tracker called Who Unfollowed Me? If...
MLK

MLK Day 2023

Here’s wishing everyone a safe, sane Martin Luther King Jr. Day. For many of us, today is always something of a day of mourning: not only mourning the loss of a great civil rights leader, but also mourning the turn our great nation seemed to take in recent years....

Twitter Tips for Authors in 2023

If you follow my blog, you probably connected with me via Twitter, whether you’re a fellow author or not. In 2020, I wrote a post about Twitter for fellow writers that got a good response. Three years later, the landscape has changed, but some Twitter best practices...
rails

Going Off The Rails (But Not On A Crazy Train)

Last April, I wrote a blog post called Back on Track With a Work-In-Progress. Part of that post was to talk about the difference between a “plotter” and a “pantser” (and to describe myself as a hybrid of the two, a “plantser”). Another, less obvious motive, was to...
French

Those Tricky French Authors and Their Obsessions

Today’s blog post was originally going to be Write Whatever the @#$% You Want, Pt. III. However, after seeing parts I and II lined up, I decided to call an audible and make it something less repetitive. Somehow the SEO gods have gotten into my head. As I’ve mentioned...
scared

Write Whatever the @#$% You Want, Pt. II

In last week’s post, I mentioned a pretty well-known author who has publicly reported his publisher “wouldn’t touch” a new release, in part because a character in his novel referred to herself as “fat.” I heard this story on a podcast, and I remember thinking, “Wait...
censorship

Write Whatever the @#$% You Want

I’ve been stewing on this for a while. It’s been brewing for quite a while. I could probably write a song about it (how about a rap?), but I don’t think I will. This is more of a blog post topic, and it might even deserve a series. And that’s the title and topic of...
gratitude

Should Every Month Be Gratitude Month?

When I was a kid, I loved Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. I read it daily and collected nearly every paperback volume of the cartoon, so I could see what I’d missed since the comic strip’s inception in 1950.  Certain things stuck: quotes like “happiness is a warm puppy”...
robot

More Thoughts On Robot Writers and The Tech Dystopia

A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog post here called When Will the Robot Overlords Replace Us? Apparently, I’m fairly obsessed with this stuff, because every time I come here and empty my brain, it seems to come up again. Today is no different. Part of the reason,...