Battle Lines Drawn in the Sand

Well, the latest string of rejections were very positive and even contained a couple of personalized responses, one of them the most positive and personalized I ever got. It is an honor and privilege of a battle scar because I know I was very close to landing a slot at a major literary agency. That was the last of the true "hopefuls," though I could still hear back from others. For now, I've officially begun the process of planning my self-publishing launch. If I do hear back, I can always halt production and consider their offer, their method and their timeline. As of right now, the planned release date is March 2022.

I started working on the front matter and the back matter, including the copyright and disclaimer page, dedication page, acknowledgements, special thanks, social media links, and about the author pages. I sent the finished manuscript to two last proofreaders, started working on an unofficial logo, allocated some startup funding, and really am switching gears to sales and to marketing, which is pretty exciting. The next big step is coordinating with the cover design and interior formatting company.

I also started reaching out to certain people to test reactions to my big reveal, and although some have been very encouraging and enthusiastic, others have been mixed, almost feeling like they're envious or uninterested or perhaps leery. I suppose whether it's agents or my own friends and family, rejection is something I will just have to get used to. Not everybody is gonna understand my mission or my vision, and not everybody is going to want me to make it or succeed or better myself. I'll just have to prove it to them, prove them all wrong, and they can read about me in the papers. This is it. There's no going back now.

tjg3

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