It's a Dog eat Dog world: running with the hounds

So where was I. Oh yes..what did my agent think of my work? Well, he liked it but said that my punctuation was appalling. I am the Comma Splice Queen. I can edit punctuation in other people's work, but my own? Forget it! So other than that he liked it and thought he could find it a home. He actually pitched it to some editors right off the bat and got some interest. They did suggest that perhaps the voice of the book might not be as appealing to the public, and perhaps if there was some factual content about electrical problems within a city's infrastructure, that might be even more appealing. I had to give it a great deal of thought. It had taken me a long time to find the right vibe and voice for the book and I wasn't sure that making those changes was something I was interested in considering.

It's very tricky when you start looking at the business part of selling your book to strangers. You have to determine the selling and marketing features as well as the creative integrity of your work. I can see why authors have to sit down and evaluate the merits of publishing traditionally versus having complete control over their work. I see why there is a glut of non-professionally edited self-published books. I did toss around the idea of doing that. You know, publish maybe a hundred or so copies for friends and family. That's what self-publishing really should be for, but then I though- no- Lucy's story has a mass appeal. And in order to get the book out to the public you have to publish traditionally. Without that there is zero distribution. Lack of distribution kills a book, and it's the first reason why self-publishing doesn't work, and it wouldn't work for me.

So I mulled over the ideas that were presented to me long and hard. I had the opinions of the editors, my agent, and my family members. The only one who couldn't help me was Lucy. And it was the one time that I really wished she could speak.
So what to do?
Stay tuned...