The cover of Behind the Lies

An agent and an editor

The manuscript for Behind the Lies was completed in January 2008.  The search for an editor who understood military thrillers began and it wasn't easy.  It actually took six months to find one and I had to wait three months to get an appointment to meet with her.  While searching for an editor I began looking for an agent.  I contacted the five agents who handled big name authors most of us who read military thrillers are aware of.  I received five rejections saying they were not looking to work with new authors.  Understandable!  My search continued by using the Internet for agents who listed military thrillers on their website resumes.  I found thirty-six, I sent each of them an e-mail inquiring whether or not they would like a synopsis or query of the manuscript.  I received thirteen responses.  I also received thirteen rejections after submitting what each requested.  However, this time I learned another lesson.  Two rejections were women.  The first one said the manuscript will make a good book but she was not the right agent for it.  The second said the book will sell but she too was not the right agent for it.  There was another place to turn and I began to consider self-publishing.

How I Started My Writing Career

Toward the middle of 2005, my wife and I began talking about what I would do when I retired at the end of 2007.  She said, "You're a salesman, full of words.  Why don't you consider writing?"  "I can't write." I told her.  "Why not?" she said.  "You do articles for the Jewish Reporter newspaper and you have a column in the local Catholic magazine.  What you should consider is going back to school and taking an English composition class to brush up on your grammar."  I followed her suggestion and signed up for a twelve week English Comp course at the local community college.  I was sixty-four years old in a class full of young twenty year old adults.  We had a woman professor who made the class very interesting.  Over the twelve weeks we had six writing assignments.  Believe it or not I received an A.  The important thing was I not only learned to improve my grammar but that I liked to write and could write.   After the class was finished I had to consider what my next step would be.

So You Want to Write!

The director of a local senior center called me.  She had heard I was an author and asked me if I would be willing to do a presentation.  She further explained that she receives numerous requests from attendees about how one starts to write.  I told her I would think about some topics and e-mail them to her.  If she liked what she saw we could arrange something.  Two days later I received her call telling me it was more than she envisioned.  Yes, she wanted to schedule a session.  We listed it for the fall.  She posted it in the community mailer that was sent out and we waited to see what would happen.  She received eleven reservations.  The program went over so well I was asked to return for a second session because of interest in the topic.  Another interesting situation occured, the sister location of the senior center in another community saw the posting and called me to ask if I would do the same program at their location.  They had twenty-four reservations.

Second Time Around for a New Beginning

This posting was previously done in April, but I will begin again.  I have completed the postings of excerpts of "A Cowboy's Vengeance."  If you like what you saw the book is available online or at any bookstore in the country.  If you would like an autographed copy you can order it by going to my website www.joesmiga.com.  Besides being printed books my books are available as e-books from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or my publisher Xlibris.  I plan to take a break from writing excerpts but they will be back with the sequel to "Behind the Lies," and my memoir which will be out later this month.  What I plan to do now is post about how I began writing and what you need to address if you decide to get publishesd.

A New Beginning

Yesterday, I tried to post another portion of my writing experience.  I was not able to publish what I had written.  I saved it to a draft.  I attempted to sign out and then sign in again.  I wound up saving two more drafts and still nothing would publish.  I canceled the two additional drafts and all of a sudden I lost five months of postings after April 9, 2012.  I was very close to the end of the excerpts of my western and the majority of the postings had to do with how I started writing. 

Because I believe those postings might be useful to someone I will begin posting about my writing and publishing experience once more.  The only thing I can suggest to other bloggers is if the system doesn't work right just remove yourself from it and come back another time.  Google was evidently having problems over the weekend because the newly designed format they were using has been replaced by the original format to post and publish to your site.

HAPPY LABOR DAY

Blogger Problems

Five months of postings have been deleted.