I sent the manuscript to a friend of my sister's to edit it for me, and he contacted me to let me know that he doesn't have time to read it because he's busy. In the next week or so, I'll be printing out another copy of the manuscript and pick someone else to proofread the novel for me. I edited the manuscript myself several times along the way, but I would like some fresh eyes to read it.
Over the last couple days, I compiled a list of possible publishers to contact that accepts unagented manuscripts. My list dwindled down from 23 to 10 possible publishers once I scratched companies off because:
- They only took manuscripts solicited through an agent,
- They don't accept the genre of my novel,
- The word count they ask for is too high for my novel, or
- They aren't taking any new authors right now.
When I have The Shepherdess Princess completely edited, and polished to my liking then I'll be going through the list of contacts for the publishing companies I compiled. Several of the companies have a 3 month waiting period before an aspiring author may be contacted about their novel. There is one I came across that I would like to try first because it only takes 4-8 weeks for a reply.
Noble Beginnings
That's right! While I've been taking a break from The Shepherdess Princess, I started writing one of it's sequels. I still have pretty far to go because I only started working on it last weekend, and I've already had to do a rewrite on the first page. I realized I was starting the novel similarly to the way I started The Shepherdess Princess, and I didn't want to do that. Noble Beginnings is the title for book two, and it will cover how Jazelle's parents met, and I would like to end the novel with her birth since she is the main female character in The Shepherdess Princess.
On the Back Burner...
I ended up putting "Magic In Their Blood" on the back burner for now because I noticed I was already halfway through finishing the novel. I ended up outlining another story idea called "Letters to Jesus" before deciding to continue writing the Shepherdess Quartet as I've begun calling it.
