That Wasn't So Bad

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   I had gotten my first rejection letter. It wasn’t all that bad. It was disappointing but I really didn’t expect anything else. It was my first submission after all.

   When I shared the news with my fellow teachers, Mark D. Williams then pointed me toward the Mystery Writers of America website. There I found an alphabetical listing of MWA-approved mystery publishers in the United States. There were almost 200 publishers on that list. 

   I spent weeks combing through that list of publishers. The majority of them wouldn’t accept unsolicited manuscripts. Others wouldn’t accept manuscripts from authors without agents. Some weren’t a good fit for my particular manuscript. That left me with approximately twenty-five publishers that might be interested in publishing my book.

   I ranked those remaining publishers based on the information I had gathered. I planned to start with number one and work my way down the list. All I had to do was start submitting.

   I found lots of other things to do and excuses not to submit.  It was my family who encouraged me to keep trying.

   It was March 2014 before I decided to submit my manuscript to another publisher. I had the same emotions and shaking hands that I had the first time I submitted Death on Paradise Creek to a publisher. I sent a query letter and synopsis and waited for the next rejection.

   One month later, Black Rose Writing requested the entire manuscript. In June, they offered me a contract. I can’t begin to explain my surprise and excitement.

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​See the January 2019 post for the next chapter of

My Indie Author Journey

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