Adventures in Publishing: Seedling

Remember those germination experiments in elementary school? The ones where you press a sunflower seed or mung bean into wet paper towels and watch as they sprout, their softened bodies cracking open to release delicate tendrils of life?

That’s what’s happening now with my novel, Still Life, Las Vegas. 

We’re slowly starting to move from the theoretical to the real. My editor at St. Martin’s Press, Sara Goodman, warned me that the route to getting a book published is notoriously slow, and for authors there’s always a “hurry up and wait” element (actor friends, does this sound familiar?). My agent Christopher added, “The black hole between the book being completely off your desk and actual being published is ALWAYS a slog.” But now the first roots are starting to appear. 

Hi. I'm friendly. Buy my book.

I was asked to okay some copy, a bio and a book description, for the catalog that St. Martin’s sends out to booksellers. It’s a unique sensation, reading someone else’s synopsis on your story. Oh! so THAT’S what it’s about! I’ve had to submit photos of myself for publicity, and lucky for me, my old friend AND headshot photographer Suzanne Plunkett from Chicago just happened to be in town, so I got her to make me look all, you know, authorial. 

Conversation is also beginning about the book cover art, and the idea of this is exciting beyond measure. I’m sure there will be angst down the road, but now, the idea of a graphic designer reading the book— it makes me squee. Isn’t that the word the kids are using these days? 

This was when I was still trying different titles.
It's the equivalent of a teenage girl writing
her married name in script.

Best thing so far? Working on my acknowledgements. It’s just the warmest feeling, sitting and writing down the names of all the people who have helped me along the way. I see a flip-book of faces who have offered me advice and given me these great nuggets of information to sprinkle into my book. All those who have nurtured this concept, this impossibility, of getting a novel to print. Of course, I’m already nervous about how many people I have inadvertently left out, but I am grateful for each and every one, acknowledged and otherwise. 

Little leaves are unfurling…