The Sixth Event: Road to publication

Before any release, its fun to talk about the road to getting published. With all the ways to get your writing out there today, each story is a little different. 

No publication happens without rejection first. The first version of The Sixth Event was shorter--much shorter, at 55k words, and paced like a break-neck thriller. I got a whole lot of agent interest, but ultimately, everyone passed. 

In the meantime, I send out the story to beta readers, and fleshed out the book itself. It went from 55k to 73k as I added in more characterization and expanded on the story, and slowed down the pacing a bit. From there, I tried querying agents again, but the interest from before seemed to have dried up. The market had shifted, as far as I could tell, and a few agents even told me the concept sounded cool but that SF was played out. Soon enough I stopped getting requests, as well, and I figured it was time to move on from agents. My beta readers had been positive enough that I knew the book would find a home. 

I never believe that an entire market could be played out, and even if agents weren't biting, small presses might. I tried one or two small ones, and while I did I submitted a pitch to a twitter pitch party, called Pit2Pub. The tweet was 

"#Pit2pub After time traveling to the five major extinction events, Raquel must use the information she finds to stop the sixth #YA #SF"

It was a quick, concise pitch, and got me 14 favorites from various small presses. After researching them all, I opted to submit to Evernight Teen first. They responded with an acceptance in less than two weeks, on February 13th. 

Three months later, on May 13th, the book will be released. It's a fast turnaround time, certainly! But I can't complain. And the cover is perfect! Don't worry--it will be revealed tomorrow!