Is it okay to publish your first novel digitally?
Now that Smashwords Inc has published my debut novel
SHADOWLAND, I wonder if was okay to publish a serious novel …real writing [http://www.awritinggeek.blogspot.com/] digitally.
Let me confess it: I completed the novel in 2000, and since then I had been shopping it for about seven years a stretch. I pitched query letters to about one hundred literary agents, and a dozen publishers. But I didn’t get any publisher. Nor I was taken on by an agent.
There were however some testimonials from top literary agents who read through my novel. Paul Cirone, an American agent, rejected me with these words: I think you are a solid writer, smart and polished, and it's hard for me to say why it's not right for me. Yet another agent, a British one, David Godwin said of my MS: "Much of the writing is wonderful." Alban Miles, an editor of Random House, commented: "It's a strong story based on a believable character. I did enjoy reading it."
There was a reputed American agent who in fact loved my MS, and asked me not to send it to any more agent. After two months, he sent me a rejection letter stating that he had his editor friend to read through it, and the editor opined that it was too bold for a first-time author. That day I knew the fate of my MS, and decided to stop pitching and submitting it to any agent or publisher.
The MS sat in the nook of my laptop for another year. Then I stumbled upon a wonderful fellow called Mark Coker. He was at the time going to launch his digital publication startup called Smashwords. I liked his idea of publishing in this digital age.
So, my novel gets a home, electronic though. Some copies of it have sold too. But what I can’t help thinking: Is the web a right place for a literary effort by any
real writer?
SHADOWLAND, I wonder if was okay to publish a serious novel …real writing [http://www.awritinggeek.blogspot.com/] digitally.
Let me confess it: I completed the novel in 2000, and since then I had been shopping it for about seven years a stretch. I pitched query letters to about one hundred literary agents, and a dozen publishers. But I didn’t get any publisher. Nor I was taken on by an agent.
There were however some testimonials from top literary agents who read through my novel. Paul Cirone, an American agent, rejected me with these words: I think you are a solid writer, smart and polished, and it's hard for me to say why it's not right for me. Yet another agent, a British one, David Godwin said of my MS: "Much of the writing is wonderful." Alban Miles, an editor of Random House, commented: "It's a strong story based on a believable character. I did enjoy reading it."
There was a reputed American agent who in fact loved my MS, and asked me not to send it to any more agent. After two months, he sent me a rejection letter stating that he had his editor friend to read through it, and the editor opined that it was too bold for a first-time author. That day I knew the fate of my MS, and decided to stop pitching and submitting it to any agent or publisher.
The MS sat in the nook of my laptop for another year. Then I stumbled upon a wonderful fellow called Mark Coker. He was at the time going to launch his digital publication startup called Smashwords. I liked his idea of publishing in this digital age.
So, my novel gets a home, electronic though. Some copies of it have sold too. But what I can’t help thinking: Is the web a right place for a literary effort by any
real writer?
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