It’s Autumn in New York
A Great Time for Murder!
Hey, I wrote a mystery. And someone is going to publish it. I’m so stunned that I haven’t made an announcement about it on my blog until this very day. I keep waiting for someone to tell me it’s not true, but . . .
On November 1, 2012 my comic-cozy, The Red Shoelace Killer – A Minnie Markwood Mystery, will be published by Mainly Murder Press, LLC. They are a small, independent, royalty paying publisher out of Wethersfield, Connecticut.
I’ve been looking for a publisher for many years and have been rejected all over the place. Each time one of them said ‘no’ I went in and re-worked my story. I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve revised it. One of my long time and dearest friends, Karen, spent hours on the manuscript and gave me many hand written pages of comments and corrections. I’m keeping them forever and gave her a nickname – the comma queen. Another reader, equally diligent, didn’t care for the last name of my protagonist. Originally she was Minnie Minerva. At Mimi’s suggestion I changed it to Minnie Markwood. Some criticisms I ignored, some cut to the quick and some I’ve taken to heart and rectified. It’s been quite an experience!
A lot of the process of writing a book and finding a publiser is B.O.R.I.N.G. if you’re not a writer and sometimes even if you are. Suffice it to say that when Judith Ivie, the publisher, emailed and said – I’m delighted to inform you that our beta readers and I agree that we would like to publish The Red Shoelace Killer in November, 2012 . . .
I stopped right there – no really – my heart actually stopped. Then there was a long gasp and I held my hand over my mouth as I read the rest. Judith attached the contract which I printed, read (kissed), signed and returned. More instructions followed and I now have all kinds of things to figure out like back cover blurbs, a log line, ideas for the cover and more. It’s fun, scary, and challenging.
I’m as afraid of failure as anyone else. I’m a little afraid of success, too. I’m not good at tooting my own horn. But I’m eager to enter this new phase of my life. I realize I may never be famous or rich (dang!), but I’ll have had the dream. I hope people will like my story. It’s cross-generational. My Minnie has two nutty twenty something sidekicks, Rashawna and Joel, who bring some youthful bounce to the story. It’s light and fun – okay, okay, it’s about a murder – but it’s character driven and that’s where the fun comes in.
So enough for now. I’ll keep you posted on what happens next.
Mainly Murder Press, LLC
