After getting my first junior novel published nearly two years ago, I felt certain that all would be plain sailing from then on. I had my foot in the door, as they say. It was a rude awakening when I discovered that wasn’t necessarily so – at least, not for fiction. Thankfully my non-fiction work was still going strong, and was indeed more interesting and rewarding than ever.
But still. I’d created a proposal for a five-book fiction series and was sure it was only a matter of time before it found a good home. It was awful when the rejections started coming. I re-read my work again and again, trying to see where I’d gone wrong. I tweaked it here and there. But I still liked it and couldn’t see why it was being rejected. Could I have misjudged the market so badly?
I would have given up if it wasn’t for some feedback I received via the Faber Academy. My work was read by the wonderful Sophie Hamley, who assured me it was merely a matter of finding the right publisher. Someone who liked quirky. She encouraged me to not limit myself to the Australian market, but to approach overseas publishers. I’d never tried that before, and thought it would be too difficult.
Actually, it was far easier than I expected. Many publishers in the UK and US refuse to consider unsolicited manuscripts (even more so than here), but there are still some that do. The first I approached asked me whether I was prepared to turn my five-book proposal into a ten-book proposal. Prepared – yes. Delighted – even more so!
It took a while for the pieces to fall into place, but I’ve just signed a contract with that publisher. Horray! I’m so glad they’re prepared to work with a writer who lives half way around the world. They’ve even agreed to generous deadlines, enabling me to keep writing my non-fiction material. Their name is Sweet Cherry, a British independent publishing house specialising in children’s fiction. I checked out their list before I approached them, and felt an affinity with the types of books they publish. This is really important. It shows our styles are a good match, and that’s something authors should always keep in mind.
So thank goodness for sweet cherries! I much prefer them to sour grapes :)
When I first started getting published, I had no contacts whatsoever. I sent an article to a magazine on spec, and they quickly made an offer. I tried another magazine, and they bit too. Then, armed with possibly too much confidence, I approached a book publisher. Just one! Happily, they accepted my proposal, and I went from being an aspiring writer to a published author with far more ease than I expected. Then – joy of joys – other publishers started approaching me and asking me to write for them. Horray! I was in!
Pitch or complete article?![IMG_0086[1]](https://stellatarakson.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/img_00861.jpg)
I checked my Klout score again and it’s now a respectable 42. (About the same as Stephen Fry’s Cat, but we won’t go into that …) If you click on the ‘measure’ tab, a nifty little graph with your 90 day score history appears. You can also look at your recent activity. Each post, tweet etc is assigned an impact score.
Stella Tarakson 