How long does it take to get published?

Hi friends! As an author, some of the most frequent questions I receive are: How long you have been writing? How long did it take for you to be traditionally published? So, for my answer, I thought I’d share with you a little bit about my writing journey!

I wrote my first novel at seventeen as a sort of experiment to see if I was serious about writing, or just in love with the idea of writing, because you know, it’s super glamorous to a teen–along the lines of Jo March from Little Women writing in her secluded nook with a lamp to guide her pen to the inkwell and back to the page.

And not at all the reality of messy pony tails (I am not talented in the messy bun department, but I blame my dancing for 18 years, which produces only the sternest of buns), a desk full of wadded paper, strewn with coffee mugs, and perilous stacks of research books and not to mention long evenings of rewrites and struggling with finding the right word instead of the almost right word.

Needless to say, after writing that first, terrible novel, I was hooked! Despite people saying English was basically a worthless degree (yes, it happened often), I went for it and ended up loving it so much I stayed for a Creative Writing master’s program and wrote a second novel for my thesis . . . not amazing but better than my first and proved that after studying the craft in college and grad school for 6 years, I still loved it. Yay!

I got married the week after graduation and stayed in that delightful bubble for quite some time, but just after our first anniversary, my young husband asked me when I was going to start the journey to publication in earnest?

And so, I did. And it went quite roughly at first. Like, a well-known agent in the Christian fiction world literally wrote a blog post on everything I did wrong with my submission. It was quite lengthy with some lovely comments at the bottom from readers haha. Looking back, it was a rather hilarious post because of all my mistakes (For example: “My novel is complete at 55,000 words”), but wowza, rough start that taught me quite a bit.

Enter the second novel and new submission and my very FIRST writers conference. I know it it is cliche to say it was like drinking from a water hose, but seriously, its the best way to describe it, especially with it shooting up your nose, leaving you gagging and sputtering with tears in your eyes from the sting. I am not saying this for sympathy, rather to let other writers know that they are not alone!!

After that first conference, I submitted to more agents and received quite a few rejections before finding my home with my DREAM agent, Tamela Hancock Murray with the Steve Laube Agency in 2015.

I continued writing books (6 in total and none of them were picked up), sending out proposals and nothing seemed to take until my agent mentioned getting my feet wet with a novella first and it was one of the best choices I made in my career because novella writing is so different from a novel in the fact you have to focus your plot and write tight for that full story feel with only a quarter of the words.

My first ever published work released in 2017, a novella called “The Widow of St. Charles Avenue” in The Second Chance Brides collection from Barbour Publishing. I was going to celebrate big time that day, but my baby decided to come a month early and I ended up having my boy the day of the book release, which was a pretty special celebration! Our first family outing was to Barnes & Noble to see my first ever book on the shelf!

My second novella, “Miss Beaumont’s Companion” in the Southern Belle Brides collection released in Fall 2018 and then things really began to pick up for me as my publisher offered me the ever elusive a novel contract!!

My debut novel, The White City , was so fun to write and I learned a GREAT deal from my wonderful editor. The following year in 2020, I really learned the importance of scheduling my writing time with tight deadlines as I released both my second novel The Gray Chamber and “The Bridal Shop” novella in the Thimbles and Threads collection in the same year.

After their release, Bethany House picked up the American Royalty series, which wasn’t even written yet. I wrote the 94k words of My Dear Miss Dupré mainly from late December 2019 to the beginning of March 2020, not including the editing rounds with my editor, which ended the book as my largest to date at around 108k. A whirlwind for sure, but I learned that I actually can write faster than I thought I could haha.

During quarantine in 2020 and what I like to call my “super pregnant” phase because it was summer in the South and well, I was super pregnant haha, I wrote Her Darling Mr. Day and of course, I had to a pregnant character in the novel on whom I bestowed my swollen ankles.

After a move to be closer to family and learning how to write with two littles running/crawling about, I finished His Delightful Lady Delia, which will release in November!!

The next proposal is in the works and in that super secret phase, but I cannot wait to share it with you once it has found a home!!

So, how long does it take to become published? If we are counting from training to publication, starting at age seventeen, 12 years, but if we are counting from official first submission to publication, 3 years from first submission to agent to book in hand! But, each writer’s journey is different, so no matter how long it has been or short, if you have a passion to become published, keep refining your craft, go to a writers conference, and keep submitting!

Thank you for being such a vital part of my writing journey!!

Visit my Amazon Author Page for the complete list of my books: https://amzn.to/3CfJXGf

If you’d like an autographed copy that is usually the cheapest price in town, just order from my online book shop here!

Happy reading!