One more sleep!
Today is exactly one sleep until Hum If you Don't Know the Words is officially launched! It feels surreal that the time has finally come considering that I started working on the manuscript in 2013 and that Putnam then made an offer on it in the October of 2015.
Now seems like a really good time to take stock and look back at the journey, because I'm feeling so incredibly grateful that the long path to publication led me here. Writing is a solitary pursuit, but it takes a village to bring a book into the world after the writer is done with it.
I spent a year on the first draft of HUM and was lucky enough to land an amazing agent a few weeks after that. The fabulous Cassandra Rodgers of The Rights Factory picked my book up out of the slush pile and was kind enough to offer me representation even though the book needed A LOT of work.
With her guidance, and input from another amazing Rights Factory agent, Olga Filina, I reworked the manuscript and we sent it out for submission. Even though the feedback was very encouraging, most editors felt I'd been overly ambitious with the novel that originally spanned four decades, and so I started from scratch and rewrote the book to span only a year and a half.
After more than a hundred rejections, HUM found its home with the phenomenal Kerri Kolen of Putnam and I couldn't have asked for a better editor or publisher. The entire team has been so amazing and enthusiastic, and I am so grateful to every single one of them for making my lifelong dream a reality.
Getting a book published takes a lot of work and commitment, but it also takes a lot of luck. If Cass hadn't picked up the book when she did, if she'd missed her appointment with Kerri (which she almost did) or if Kerri hadn't remembered the book she'd been pitched months before and found the time to read it... I wouldn't be here today and HUM would be a dusty manuscript abandoned in a drawer somewhere. For the writers out there who are feeling as despondent as I was at so many points in the process: don't give up; if you believe in your book and in what you are trying to achieve, keep at it and keep working at making it better because you never know when your lucky break will come.
I was kept going by my wonderful husband, friends and writing group team mates who wouldn't let me quit, and who kept telling me it would happen for me. I don't know what I would have done without them so here's more advice for writers: surround yourself with talented and caring people who get what you're trying to do and really, truly want you to succeed.
Books wouldn't get out into the world without booksellers and book lovers and I have been so lucky to have the most amazing ones champion HUM. Thank you to all of them for reading the early copies of HUM and for responding with such kindness and enthusiasm. I have been overwhelmed by the positive feedback and thank my lucky stars (and the fabulous Putnam team) every day that HUM found its way into the right readers' hands because that's all I ever wanted: to have my book land in the hand of a reader who would connect with it and the characters. Based on that criteria, HUM has already succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.
To each and every one of you who have played a role in this journey, I sincerely thank you.
Now seems like a really good time to take stock and look back at the journey, because I'm feeling so incredibly grateful that the long path to publication led me here. Writing is a solitary pursuit, but it takes a village to bring a book into the world after the writer is done with it.
I spent a year on the first draft of HUM and was lucky enough to land an amazing agent a few weeks after that. The fabulous Cassandra Rodgers of The Rights Factory picked my book up out of the slush pile and was kind enough to offer me representation even though the book needed A LOT of work.
With her guidance, and input from another amazing Rights Factory agent, Olga Filina, I reworked the manuscript and we sent it out for submission. Even though the feedback was very encouraging, most editors felt I'd been overly ambitious with the novel that originally spanned four decades, and so I started from scratch and rewrote the book to span only a year and a half.
After more than a hundred rejections, HUM found its home with the phenomenal Kerri Kolen of Putnam and I couldn't have asked for a better editor or publisher. The entire team has been so amazing and enthusiastic, and I am so grateful to every single one of them for making my lifelong dream a reality.
Getting a book published takes a lot of work and commitment, but it also takes a lot of luck. If Cass hadn't picked up the book when she did, if she'd missed her appointment with Kerri (which she almost did) or if Kerri hadn't remembered the book she'd been pitched months before and found the time to read it... I wouldn't be here today and HUM would be a dusty manuscript abandoned in a drawer somewhere. For the writers out there who are feeling as despondent as I was at so many points in the process: don't give up; if you believe in your book and in what you are trying to achieve, keep at it and keep working at making it better because you never know when your lucky break will come.
I was kept going by my wonderful husband, friends and writing group team mates who wouldn't let me quit, and who kept telling me it would happen for me. I don't know what I would have done without them so here's more advice for writers: surround yourself with talented and caring people who get what you're trying to do and really, truly want you to succeed.
Books wouldn't get out into the world without booksellers and book lovers and I have been so lucky to have the most amazing ones champion HUM. Thank you to all of them for reading the early copies of HUM and for responding with such kindness and enthusiasm. I have been overwhelmed by the positive feedback and thank my lucky stars (and the fabulous Putnam team) every day that HUM found its way into the right readers' hands because that's all I ever wanted: to have my book land in the hand of a reader who would connect with it and the characters. Based on that criteria, HUM has already succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.
To each and every one of you who have played a role in this journey, I sincerely thank you.
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