My Pearl of Great Price

Drum Roll, if you please.

Today, my good friend, Charity Bradshaw - the one who is always ready with a virtual hug to make my day - continues her book tour on my blog. 

The Magic Wakes is her debut and what a quasar it is.

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Why I Chose My Small Publisher—WiDo Publishing

On February 17th I’ll be guest posting on Sharon Bayliss’ blog about how I decided to go with a small publisher in general, but today I want to talk about how I decided to go with my particular publisher.

There are many reasons why we make the decisions we do. Sometimes they are clear and logical. Other times…not so much. I tend to fall in the illogical decision making more often than my family would like. Emotions rule me and I go with that. In a way, this is how I decided to sign with my publisher.

Over the course of a year I started looking at a couple of small publishers. I found several that looked really good. I knew authors that had published with them and they had been around long enough that if there were problems they would have surfaced somewhere in the blogosphere. I grew more and more comfortable with a couple of them until I finally decided that smaller would be better for me.

WiDo was appealing for a couple of reasons.

I knew Karen Gowan before thinking about her publishing house as a blog friend. She always has great content on her blog Coming Down the Mountain. A couple of years ago she held a Lettuce Write contest in which her submissions editor Allie would pick a winner. The best part was that even if you didn’t win (which I didn’t) Allie would send you comments on the first three chapters that you submitted.

Allie liked my story and writing, even though I broke a lot of rules and she had no problems telling me she was surprised that she liked it. I loved the honesty and the suggestions she made that might make it better. She invited me to send the whole thing, but I didn’t. I spent another year finding critique partners and revising. When I was ready to query, I thought of Allie and knew I had to give it another try.

When WiDo told me they wanted to publish my novel, I was overjoyed. Finally I would get the professional help I needed (and yes there are many ways to read that last sentence), and my dream would become a reality.

We had to wait until I got cut from the ABNA contest before I could sign the contract. That was one VERY long month let me tell you. I went back and forth between “Cut me!” and “Don’t cut me!” That hope of getting in with a big publisher still had part of me in its grip, but I was also ready to move forward.

In the end, I did get cut after the round that gave me some great feedback on my writing. That had been my main purpose in entering anyway. I signed the contract with WiDo and waited for a that sinking feeling to tell me it was the wrong choice. It never came.

So I slapped on a stamp and mailed it. Once it was out of my hands everything lifted. I felt that joy that I had craved and I stopped worrying.

And I haven’t regretted that decision. My editor and I worked hard to make The Magic Wakes the best it could be. The cover art is some of the best I’ve ever seen, and because I’m with a smaller publisher I can actually talk to everyone involved in the process. It feels like a family and I don’t get lost in the shuffle.

Would I do it all over again?

Yep.

Want to know more about how things played out? Check out these future blog tour posts:

· February 9th Working with My Publisher over at Mia Hayson’s blog.

· February 11th Working with My Editor over at Laurel Garver’s blog.