A Book I Wrote was Published. How Did That Happen?

It happened when I wasn’t looking for it. I got published.

My first book, 3-Minute Prayers for Boys, is not the result of months or years of manuscript shopping. In fact, it got through the system with nary a rejection. How?

I was in the right place at the right time with the right connections and the right publication history. Here’s the story, for anyone curious to read it.

For years, I have been a member of a writers group called The Weaklings. When we formed, we were simply a group of guys interested in being published someday. We wrote fantasy, sci-fi, flash fiction, and bizarre children’s books that were actually meant for college students (that was me). We participated in writing events like the 3-Day Novel Contest and NaNoWriMo. We attended and started to speak at writers conferences.

Then we launched our own writers conference, The Jot Conference, a one-night, free event for writers like us who were short on time and cash, but wanted to make connections with others in the industry. We invited speakers who understood that we couldn’t pay them, and they came anyway. The connections paid off. Within a few years, two of the Weaklings were working for a publishing house. My friend Andy was an editor. I worked in marketing.

Now that I understood how the publishing world worked, I started professionalizing my manuscripts. I submitted my work to agents. I wrote articles and stories for magazines and places where I had natural connections. I built my bibliography. And I received rejection after rejection for the books that I most wanted to be published.

And then I lost my marketing job at the publishing house. I understood rejection on a new level. I returned to the bookstore and applied my experience to the store in general and the children’s department specifically. I stopped submitting my work to agents and focused on building the best children’s department I could.

Then I got a call.

One of my editor friends from my former employee had found new employment at a different publishing house and he had a writing project for me if I was interested. I was floored. I had stopped trying to be published. Now an editor was giving me a book contract.

Thus did 3-Minute Prayers for Boys come to be. My editor gave me a chance–as well as the confidence–to write children’s non-fiction (not a genre I’ve ever written before), because he had read the side projects I wrote while I was trying to get published.

And now that I’ve been published, new doors are opening. So for anyone who is afraid to get started or discouraged to continue trying, keep going. Write the next sentence. Submit the next piece. Surround yourself with other dreamers. Their success is your success. And then one day, it may happen for you.

It does happen.