While June might remind us were already halfway through another year, it is also this blog’s blogiversary month!
I published my first post in June 2017. That kicked off the 117 posts I’ve published since.
I launched my blog to extend my writer platform. I’d already begun querying agents and publishers and had been rejected, but was still two years away from signing the small press contract I was offered in January 2019. I wasn’t published anywhere and didn’t have a book out to plug.
So what does a writer who isn’t published write about?
Writing, of course! My first post was titled Just Start, which was, and still is, a life motto of mine.
While I’m still another 6 months away from being officially published (the first book in my YA series, Blackbirch, is coming early 2020), I’ll continue to practice what I preach and blog about…
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Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog 
Congratulations on the books. I’m not sure I have the staying power for ‘proper’ publishers. I started writing in retirement and will hit 70 at the end of this year – I don’t have decades to find a publisher. On the other hand, I don’t have decades to improve my writing either.
But the two books nearest to being ready are children’s stories and children’s books need illustrations… so I guess I’ll just have to bite the proverbial and get on with those query letters (and that final round of editing 😦 )
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Give a try, Cathy. You’ll never know where it could lead. Good luck!
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That’s so cool that your book is coming out! I was trying to query my book but I’ve run out of steam. I sent 25 queries and only got one request. So I thought I had to rewrite the query letter. That took 6 months. And rewrite the book during the same period. And now … I’m afraid to start querying again. I did start another book … but I don’t know if that was a good or bad idea. I have in my head that you should send about 100 queries per book before giving up in this market. But intellectually telling myself that, and doing it, are two very different things.
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Thanks, Susan 😊. Good luck with your querying. Definitely get it back out there because you never know how quickly things change. I went through three years of rejections, never once getting a full request, until the small press that signed my book asked for one. This happened within a week of me returning to querying after spending almost a year rewriting my book.
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