Dear Friends,

I’ve taken the plunge.

First things first … no, I’m not getting married. But I have made a potentially life-changing commitment to someone.

After a series of events that I can only call serendipitous, I have a literary agent to find a publishing house and home for my precious third novel, Finding Imogene.

I AM BEYOND EXCITED!!!!

Now, even with an agent extraordinaire such as mine, getting a novel published by a traditional publishing house isn’t a given. It’s like buying a house—you’re never positive the sale will close until someone hands you the keys. Over the next few months, I’ll work with an editor to finetune Finding Imogene, and my agent will begin submitting Finding Imogene to publishers in September. As soon as I get the keys, you’ll be one of the first to know.

Over the next several months, I’ll share what I can in my newsletter about my new experience and the difference between being self-published and having an agent. For starters, here’s how my indie experience has already helped:

The agent immediately asked me for a bio, comparable titles, and an elevator pitch.

Because I’ve been a self-published author, I was ready. In 2014, I took WeGrowMedia‘s “Get Read” course, and later, three mastermind sessions, where the founder, Dan Blank, encouraged us always to have a current bio on our website. Done (see About). And he suggested that we have our thirty-second pitch ready. He asked us something like, “If you’re in line to get a hotdog and someone asks you what your book is about, what will you say?” Done. In his book, Be the Gateway: A Practical Guide to Sharing Your Creative Work and Engaging Your Audience, Dan Blank discusses how finding comparable titles will help you find your audience—an exercise I did when I finished the first draft of Finding Imogene last July. Comp titles? Okay. Done. So, when I received the email from my agent (oooh, I like the sound of that), I already had the bio, pitch, and comp titles ready. Thanks, Dan Blank, for this gift of preparedness.

Next, the agent suggested changes to my website.

Again, thanks to “Get Read” with Dan Blank’s WeGrowMedia in 2014, I designed and have managed my website from the beginning. With my author-publisher hat on, I had previously shared a cover and book description for Finding Imogene on my website and social media months ago. Since this will change now that I’m part of a team, I was asked to remove the cover and description from my website. It took me less than one minute to take care of on my own. I then visited my social media accounts to remove the same. Within fifteen minutes, I emailed my agent to say I’d cleaned everything up.

As much as I enjoy being an author-publisher, I am thrilled about the new direction I’m headed. Life is about experimenting and learning new things, so I’m living it up.

If you’d like the inside scoop on this new publishing path of mine, please sign up for my newsletter where I will share the details. I will not be sharing the weekly update on my website. I find the newsletter a safe place to share, and I can be open.

Thank you for being you.

Teri

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