"How I Got My Series Published," or "Persistance Pays"

I sent the first book in my mystery series to more than 40 editors, and received mostly form-letter rejections in response.

One day I got a hand-written note from an editor at Dodd, Mead rejecting the book that said, "Keep trying. This is better than most of the stuff that comes in over the transom." Rarely getting that kind of encouragement, I wrote her and asked if she would be interested in seeing another book in the series. She said absolutely. But I didn't have another book in the series. I did, however, have a couple of hundred pages of a book I'd started years earlier but put in a drawer. I pulled it out and considered how to rework it, sat down and hammered out the second book in four months.

Knowing I would be traveling to New York on business a few weeks after I finished the second book, I sent it to the editor and called her to let her know it was on its way and ask her if we could talk about it over lunch when I got to New York. She said, "Sure. Lunch is one of the things I do best."

When I arrived at her offices a few weeks later, she came out to the reception area to meet me, and said, "I'm taking you to lunch." Well, I'd heard that when an editor takes a writer to lunch rather than vice versa, it means Big Contract. After we were seated at a table in the restaurant she dropped the bomb, saying, "I like this, but I'm not going to buy this book, either."

Before my heart fell completely through the floor, however, she went on to explain that she couldn't possibly make the book the first in a series about a Chicago-based character because most of the book takes place in upstate New York. She asked me to send her the first book again so she could take another look. Then she told me that by the way, the second book couldn't possibly be the second book in the series, either, because I would have to establish my hero in Chicago for at least two books before taking him so far afield.

The upshot was that she looked at the first book again, liked it enough to show it around the shop. Dodd, Mead's national sales manager had seen the book when she was with another house (which shows how long the book had been making the rounds) and had begged her former publisher to buy it. That was enough to sway my editor,and they made an offer.

In the meantime, of course, I'd already started in on a third in the series, thinking I had to do another book to take the place of the second in the series. Ultimately, the series was published in the order I wrote it. The moral, though (of this rather long-winded tale) is: You never know. Just keep believing in yourself.

Mike Sherer
www.emersonwardmysteries.com