NOT ALL DREAMS COME TRUE

The Girl in the Blue Blazer

For the past twenty-four years, I’ve been pursuing a traditional book deal with visions of a large advance, a book tour, professional five-star reviews, and a movie option dancing in my head. During that time, I’ve been rejected by hundreds of agents and publishers for various reasons. They couldn’t connect to the writing or the characters. They didn’t like how I executed the story and so on. There were many who sent canned responses and others who didn’t respond at all, leaving me to conclude that no response meant, “No”. I must admit that in 2014, my Cass & Nick Series was picked up by a small publishing house. That acquisition established me as a published author. However, the deal didn’t include the aforementioned visions that had been dancing in my head. There wasn’t an advance or a tour, and that series has since reverted back to me.

I currently have fourteen books on Amazon. The four-book Cass & Nick series and ten other books, all of which I tried to get an agent and book deal for. My latest novel, The Girl in the Blue Blazer, was represented by a very well-meaning agent who loved my work. He tried to sell the novel for over a year. Finally, we both agreed a deal was not in the cards. So I put the book on the shelf and wrote another book. I just really believed that with the right agent and the right book, the book deal I longed for was inevitable. Finally, in 2020, I landed a BIG NEW YORK AGENT who helped me get the new book in tiptop shape. Like the previous agent, she tried to sell it for over a year to no avail!

So that was it for me. After that, I accepted that a traditional book deal with a breakout book would never happen. I’m not a quitter, but after two decades and finally landing a top agent and having an amazing book and still not getting a deal, I’ve concluded that God does not want that for me. Does it mean I will stop writing? NO! Actually, I feel free now. I have exhausted myself. I have let go. Thank God for self-publishing. I have self-published The Girl in the Blue Blazer and it’s available on Amazon. I’m in the throes of promoting it and it still could become my breakout novel without a publishing deal. Moreover, I will bring the other book that’s on the shelf out next year, and I will continue writing more books. No, not all dreams come true, but it doesn’t mean you have to stop doing what you love.