There May Be Light At the End of the Tunnel, After All

I did the math on how long ago I may have written my very first vampire novel, and it was approximately 28 years ago. Back then, it was under the genre of horror.

Vampire novels are under their own genre(s). They are paranormal romance, or urban fantasy. Call it whatever you may, the vampire is here to stay, and it has more fans now, than it did back when I began writing.

And this is a good thing, in a way, because we've moved away from the vampire being the totally nasty, vicious villain in our stories--thank goodness! I was always so sick of vampires being the villain. I would watch the Hammer films of Dracula with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, and for once I wanted Christopher Lee to out smart Peter Cushing and just do something astounding,and get away, plus get the girl in the end.

So, my point of this post is, I may finally, after these many years get my vampire novel published.

Yay.

When I think about the many times I tried to publish one, and only get rejected (there were good reasons for the rejections, believe me), I go numb. I see rejections from publishing houses that no longer are in existence. Well, I'm still around, so that's something. And I kept on writing despite the fact I struggled with dyslexia all this time--and never knew it until I was in my 40's!--and something about my writing just didn't jibe with whatever the publishers wanted, or, later, the agents.

Well, now we're into the era of POD's, and there are good things about them, and there are bad things about them. I'm not going to go into that, as that's not what this post is about. My husband commented that he didn't like how fast or easy it was for anyone to get published these days, and I countered him with, "It's the only way I can get published now." Yeah, he saw my point, and wouldn't take it away from me. But I won that argument hands down.

I neither have the patients, the time, nor the emotional set-up any more to even deal with an agent. I waited all summer long for an editor of an eBook publisher to tell me if she wanted the rest of my book or not. I don't have time for such b.s. and when I couldn't get her to tell me straight out if she wanted it or not, it really frustrated me. She simply wouldn't tell me. I didn't like being strung along like that. And since my Internet went down, and I had to get a new e-mail address, I guess I'll never know if she did "get back to me" about it. I no longer care. I've moved on.

I'm sure I'm not the only one out here who holds down a full-time, or even a part-time job, while writing, and doing everything else. I'll be 60, in a few short years. I really don't want to be driving a bus into my 60's, but I will, if I have to. But what I'd like to have is a couple of novels out there, and I don't care if I'll never be on the best seller's list. It would be nice, but it most likely isn't going to happen.

What I can say is, I'm published. I have some books out there, and if someone is interested, they can buy one. It is the one accomplishment I set out to get, and by God I have done it, and hopefully in the near future will have more than just one book to my name. I took a chance with the first one, and found out that people do like my writing. I got it from at least half of the people who bought one that they really liked it, wanted to read the "next one", etc. That is worth more to me than being a New York Times Best Seller. I actually created something that people enjoyed as much as I loved creating it.

The contract from Copperhill came to me in the mail this week, and until I get a few things answered about two points, I'm not sending it back signed. I've got an idea that if they want a happy author who might get the word out that they are easy to work with, they should be happy to answer my questions--which they have been doing so far--and make me feel comfortable with the process.

I'm hoping for a fairly decent cover, and good editing process (which I've read has three stages for this company--which is rare for a POD to offer at no additional cost--and they charge nothing for any of their services. Which, in a way, is how a POD should work if you ask me.)

Well, this is my update. I've kept things sort of mum, because I wasn't sure what to expect, and still don't. I'm unsure as I wade into these waters, what's in them. I don't want to trust that this will work out.

Stay tuned.