The Snarkology blog’s next guest, Maureen McGowan, had a circuitous route to publishing that includes stalled agents, defunct publishers, and an unexpected genre change. I won’t summarize further – you’ve just got to read it.
Maureen has a great quote that I feel is super-worthy of being addressed separately. She writes: “My first manuscript wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t good enough, and I’m glad it wasn’t published. Now. At the time I was devastated—I had worked so hard on that book!—but I’m grateful that self-publishing wasn’t a viable option at the time, because I might have taken it, and I’m glad that I had the chance to improve my craft in relative privacy, instead of under the glare of readers and reviewers.”
Just today, a member of an online writing forum mentioned that her first rejection letter four years ago made her so angry she self-published that book and its sequels. It was a LOL moment for her, now, but there’s a grim reality underneath it. So many people now self-publish far too early in their careers, rather than investing time into improving their writing.
I’m glad Maureen took the long way around.