So, I've written a book where do I go from here?
However, I believe it was all part of the plan. I don't think I could have written Two scoops without experiencing those ten years.
So, here I am Tuesday 14th May 2019 and I type THE END. Wowza's it's finished!
I spent the next few months contacting many, many Publishers. I located the specific chick lit/womens commercial fiction agents and submitted the required amount of writing and a Query letter. Mostly, they were asking for the first three chapters but some wanted so many words. There were all sorts of different requirements so I had to make sure to read the submission guidelines.
I guess nowadays we are blessed with the internet because I could email the agents but there were some who requested that I posted to them.
Anyway, I sent to every Publisher I could find that was interested in Chick Lit and Women's Commercial Fiction and after a couple of weeks I received my first letter.
They said they loved it blah, blah, blah and I was buzzing but they wanted me to pay towards the publishing of the book. Being brand new to the industry I was unaware of Vanity Publishers. After asking some questions on Facebook forums I learned that Vanity Publishing is an old-fashioned term that refers to a certain type of publisher that invites authors to send in their manuscripts and then charges a fee or co-payment to assess and/or publish the books.
I was gutted and wasn't going to pay the extortionate amount of money they wanted to publish my book but held on in there and carried on contacting more publishers. I did receive letters back from publishers saying that they liked Two scoops, not Three but they didn't love it enough to want to take it on. Then another Vanity Publisher offer and another rejection and that was how it went.
Randomly, one morning I switched on This Morning and there was a feature with Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan talking about their WHSmith book club. I had a feeling I needed to hear what they had to say and pressed the record button as I was just walking out the house to pick up my daughter from Preschool.
I watched the feature later in the evening and was so pleased to have heard what they had to say. They spoke about their WHSmith book club and the competition they were running to find an unpublished author and give them a publishing deal. Entrants needed to send in the first 10,000 words of their manuscript and it would go through the process of being whittled down until a winner was found.
The reason Richard and Judy were doing the competition is because according to them, getting traditionally published nowadays is pretty much impossible. Apparently, publishers are looking for someone who already has an audience, a celebrity, a non-fiction piece but to grab the attention of a potential Agent with your debut, 3 chapters it has to be outstanding.
They went on to say that nowadays being self-published is so popular and really has benefits. Richard said that Self-publishing has lots its stigma of being second best and if you were a debut writer definitely have a look into it. With self-publishing he said that would earn more money from Royalties and wouldn't be contracted to a second book in a limited amount of time.
After watching the feature I felt far more positive about Two scoops, not Three.
A couple of Two scoops' reviews👇
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 June 2020
Verified Purchase
Started reading yesterday & finished it today! Brilliant! An easy read; gripping & rather saucy too! Terri Boas when are you releasing your next??? :-)
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