The Ink is Dry

My little world of Epertase has found a home.

For those of you who don’t know, my fantasy novel, The Light of Epertase, is on its way to becoming a published book. I thought I would take some time here to talk briefly about the process of getting a publishing deal in hopes of helping those of you who seek to be published keep your heads up.

I began the querying process in September of last year (or as I like to call it, passing a nine month kidney stone). I mean, my manuscript was the greatest thing I could ever write so it was only a matter of time before I was beating agents off with a stick, right?

Well, not quite.

Each form rejection letter caused me to rethink everything from my query letter to my story itself, much like everyone who tries this authoring thing, I suspect.
So why did I keep trying? Everyone has their own reasons and motivations but mine came down to one simple fact—not one rejection came from the reading of my actual story. That’s right; I was rejected on my query letter alone many times. No partial requests, full requests, nothing. So I continued to rework my letter over and over all the while knowing that it may just as easily be my credentials (or lack thereof) as it was in my story as a whole.

What’s that?

How dare you suggest that my query letter may have simply sucked?

OK, maybe it did, who knows?

And then, because of a good friend, Rhemalda Publishing came into the picture. They read my story. The key part of that sentence is “they read my story.” I’m not sure but I’m assuming they liked it since they offered me a contract. I counter-offered, letting them know how important of a person I was and… Are you kidding me? I signed and was elated to do so. Sure, I did the due diligence first; you know, have important people look over the contract (by important people I mean my wife), research the company, and all of those things that important people tell you to do. Note: That is a joke. Signing a contract is a serious thing and you should have someone who knows more about contracts than my wife go over it (sorry, honey).

Now, I couldn’t be happier...

Well, maybe if everyone goes out and buys my book I would be happier.

Repost- When a name isn't really a word

I felt it pertinent to re-post this blog in light of the pending sale of my fantasy novel, THE LIGHT OF EPERTASE, to Rhemalda publishing as it discusses my choice of the word Epertase.

How did I come up with Epertase you might ask? That's pretty easy. While those who know me, will recognize Epertase as the name of the fantasy novel that is due out in the spring of 2011. Actually, it is THE LIGHT OF EPERTASE, but that's not really important right now. The real credit for Epertase goes to my then-four-year-old son, Aiden. When he was in the early stages of being able to talk... and talk... and talk, he used to enjoy building towers with his building blocks or whatever he could find to stack on top of each other. For some unknown reason, when we asked him what he was building, he would always say his Epertase.

At that time, I had just began my epic fantasy novel and even with all of my creative juices flowing, could not come up with a name for the world I was creating. Meanwhile, Aiden was running around screaming "Epertase" all day and, somehow, I was still stuck. This is the part where I would like to tell you about my genius epiphany, you know, the one where I came up with this wonderful name for my fantasy kingdom, even if it would have been a lift from my son's new-found vocabulary, but that wasn't so. No, instead it took my beautiful wife to explain to me the awesomeness (not sure she used that exact phrase) of Aiden's word.

Then it clicked. I ran to my computer and logged onto the google website where I typed in "Epertase." That's right, I googled. You know what? Not a single entry for "Epertase." Google thought that I wanted to see a definition for expertise. That's as close as they could get to my kid's brilliant word. Dictionary.com... Pertuse—which means Punched; pierced with, or having, holes. Actually, that's a pretty cool word too.

So there you have it. My son named my book, my kingdom, and now my blog. But if anyone asks, I'm telling them it was all my idea. Heck, he was only two.