Author Timeline – Query to Contract! The Wild Rose Press

Guess what, my dark lovelies!

This crazy word lady got a contract for Kingdom of Acatalec, my new Sci-Fi Fantasy Romance! November 2021 with The Wild Rose Press!

I thought most of my writer buddies would like to see what that process was like for me in terms of time frames, and writer process for this story, and some readers might find the data entertaining, so I’ve created a post about my experience.

My book used to be called Looking for a Pilot, and before that it was called, My Digital Romance. Believe it or not the first version of this story started off in February 2020 as a LitRPG, inspired by Ready Player One written by Ernest Cline.

The original draft was about the main MC being a teenager, being a YA category, in a future world similar to Ready Player One, where most people spent their lives lived in a digital world, and it wasn’t an alien world that she got sucked into but the digital world… and it was real. Not real, as in feeling real like what Ready Player Two has, but an actual plane of existence that our technology finally had access to through VR.

My second inspiration was one of my writer friends, Danielle, that I met in one of my first NaNoWriMo’s ever, she was a beast at writing. On top of being an excellent writer, she was a talented artist! Every write-in she would kick my ass at word count sprints, and she was truly inspiring at her dedication to writing. This was before I ever had a completed novel in hand. Lots of incomplete projects, and nothing finished. I met up with her at coffee shops regularly for a while, but we lost contact over the years, but I never forgot her. Something she said stuck with me, and it was one time that she vented about being in a wheelchair, that it wasn’t what defined her, and there needed to be more stories where people with disabilities were not defined by the disability, represented, but not the main part of the story. Honestly, I made this character for her. I looked up to her when I just started my writing journey, and it’s only fitting the MC inspired by her should be my first contracted novel.

Find out more about NaNoWriMo here.

After writing 20 chapters into Wattpad for the LitRPG YA fantasy version of the story, I came to the realization that these chapters were soley for me, for discovering my characters, and the plot needed work. So, without copying anything from those chapters, I COMPLETELY rewrote the book this time with an older audience in mind, making it more like NA, and making the new world not be video game like, but an alien race in a parallel realm with magic.

I might make these chapters available again in the future for fans of the book to see what it was before I completely rewrote it, making it a whole new book! Stay tuned in my Newsletter to get exclusive content, and updates in the future, as well as be notified when this book is released!

Then I had my completed first draft of the new version where Tyler transformed from merely being a school-aged VR adventurer to a bad-ass drone pilot in October 2020 after completing NaNoWriMo2020 and getting my first draft of a different book completed, I was on a roll, and kept the momentum going. I sent off my draft at 85k words to an editor that I found from PNWA, Alicia Dean Editing on October 14th 2020. Revised my edits back December 23rd, and got to work on making some revisions to better the manuscript.

Once I was finished, I let the book sit for a bit. Then came back to it in August 2021, did one more round of edits, and sent it off to submissions, for The Wild Rose Press around PNWA’s Virtual Conference with my query in September 9th 2021. The team replied back that they forwarded my submission to a senior editor for review on the 10th.

On September 15th I got an email from Ally Robertson saying she received my query, and then let me know that she was Alicia Dean. Haha! So, the senior editor had forwarded my query to the very person who already read and gave advice for improvements on the book. However it was now named The Kingdom of Acatalec, and not Looking for a Pilot. But, despite the name change and some updates Ally had remembered my story even from a year ago, and requested a full manuscript.

My editor replied back on the 17th saying she was in receipt of the manuscript, and will be reviewing it with an, “eye of hopefully offering a contract.” That’s one thing this publisher was really great about was communication! I knew what was happening every step of the way.

On October 25th 2021, I finally got an email back saying Ally completed her review and she liked it so much! She informed me that she would be submitting a request for contract, and it can take a few weeks to hear back on if the rest of the crew is on board.

Waiting is the cruelest part of the author process. But it was made easier knowing the timeline for things. (fingers crossed)

On November 2nd 2021, I received an email from the senior editor of TWRP of my division, Paranormal Department. Titled: Contract for Kingdom of Acatalec

You can imagine I was so freaking excited! And I read through the contract, and found the terms to be favorable for them fronting all the production costs of bringing a book to life. So, I sent my signed agreement over. The only thing I would have liked to see differently on the contract was that the Audiobook portion is misleading, as they do not do Audiobook for the stories they represent. Which is great for me, because I plan on producing it myself! But, at first I was concerned I was signing my audio rights away, and that they wouldn’t be doing anything with those rights. I was pleasantly wrong about that, and am happy that I will retain the ability to bring my book to audio!

This is the part that will get your nerves all a flutter, because until they sign that contract as well, you don’t feel like it’s real, or actually happening!

November 9th 2021, received the contract back along with next steps, and onboarding documents!

More updates to come about Kingdom of Acatalec! Don’t miss a thing and join the Newsletter! There are updates, new release announcements, and freebies from other awesome authors!

Want to read my query? I’ll be posting about that soon and more in coming posts!

Until next time

Check out my current books, or even my upcoming releases here

Stevie