E.S. Raye

With Gas Giant Gambit officially out in the world, and with big news pending on that front, I feel that it’s a good time to talk about how this all happened in the first place.

I think it’s important to stress that there is no “right way” to get your book published. And if you’re hoping for a contract from a publishing company, there is no one path to getting it. I proved that to myself.

But I’m getting ahead of things. Let’s start at the beginning.

An Idea

My writing journey, like so many before me, started with an idea. But it wasn’t an idea for a book; rather, it was for a comic book.

If you’ve been hanging around with me for a while, you may already know about my planned superhero/WWII/cosmic horror/scifi/fantasy book series, and its main character, the Cobalt Fist.

That all started just as a “for fun” idea for a comic book. But I never really had any intention of learning how to write comics or find an artist. It was just to entertain myself.

Until my wife Jessie said I should write it as a book.

It was like a gigantic switch, like the kind Dr. Frankenstein might throw to awaken his creation, flipped in my head.

Almost immediately, I started writing. It was fun, but aimless, and at around 200 pages I realized I not only didn’t have a story, I didn’t know how to get one.

Hittin’ the Books

I didn’t know the first thing about the craft of writing and creating a coherent story. So, I leaned on my life-long love of learning, and studied up.

Listing the resources I turned to for my education is a whole other topic (that I really should cover) for another day. But the bulk of it came from Helping Writers Become Authors. Writer K.M. Weiland has created an unparalleled source for explaining all the nuts and bolts that go into story structure, character arc, and everything else you need to assemble a good story.

I still go back to this page whenever I start a new project, just to brush up and keep the concepts top of mind as I get into it.

Hard Left

Once I felt I had the fundamentals under my belt, I started outlining. But by then, I knew what I wanted to write was a seven book series, so I didn’t just start outlining book 1; I waded waist deep into outlining the entire story.

I got far into the process (to at least book five, I think), when a new idea occurred to me. I don’t remember what, specifically, sparked the inception of Gas Giant Gambit, but it hit me like a train. I was at an impasse: do I stay the course, and finish working on the Cobalt Fist, or do I bail out and write Gas Giant?

Obviously, I put the Cobalt Fist on the back burner.

Ultimately, it came down to business strategy. I knew I wanted to try for traditional publishing, and all my research said it was easier to break into trad with a stand-alone. Which made sense to me. It’s less of a risk on a new author.

What’s more, I knew that the more I wrote, the better I would get at it, and I wanted the Cobalt Fist to be a masterpiece. So I thought it would be wise to get in some “practice,” so to speak.

With the decision fully rationalized, I switched tracks, and wrote the space-western that would become my debut novel.

Query Trenches & Short Stories

With the manuscript complete some time later, it was time to start querying agent and publishers. My research showed me how to write a query letter, but also indicated including previous writing credits in said letter would be advantageous, as it would act as “proof” my writing has been deemed publishable elsewhere.

Again, that made a certain amount of sense to me. Agents have to filter through an immense number of submissions, and showing that others have appreciated your work should help at least a little, right?

The problem was, I didn’t have any such credits.

Gas Giant Gambit was the first fictional thing I had written since middle school.

So, once again, I switched tracks, and started writing short stories while I queried anyway (seemed like a shame to sit on the manuscript, good idea or not). The first one I wrote was “The Stuff Legends are Made Of,” now in Alex Parker Publishing’s RARE anthology (massively updated and edited from its original form). But it wasn’t the first story I published (in fact, it wasn’t published until after Alex Parker had the GGG manuscript). “The Stuff…” bounced around submissions while I wrote as many more stories as I could think of. I entered into contests and woke up with fresh ideas in the middle of the night. It was a frenzy of fiction.

But, all I got back was rejections. The battle felt uphill, but I kept climbing anyway.

Eventually (and again, I don’t fully remember the details of how), I found an open submission for short stories for a small publishing company called Alex Parker Publishing. They were looking for interesting short stories and were in the process of releasing their very first novel.

I submitted a short horror story called “SSID.”

To my surprise, they accepted it and published it on their website. As far as I can tell, it was technically the first thing they ever published (their first novel came out a few weeks or months later), and it’s still there now, joined by a few others.

I took that publishing credit, threw it into my query letter, and hit the trenches again.

The Plan Comes Together, Only Different

While I was waiting to hear back from a particular publisher or agent, I took a closer look at Alex Parker Publishing’s website. At first I had assumed they wouldn’t be interested in Gas Giant Gambit, as their upcoming novel was a portal fantasy romance.

But at the same time, they had published my horror short, so…

I found the manuscript “wish list” they had posted to their website and realized my story ticked off almost everything they were interested in:

• Imaginative settings;
• Morally grey characters;
• Character-drive stories;
• Deep themes of human nature.

When I was rejected by the publisher I had been waiting on, I sent an email to Alex Parker Publishing. Since I had developed a good working relationship with them during the editing and publishing process of “SSID,” that email was far less formal than the queries I had been sending out.

It basically amounted to, “Hey, I’ve got a novel manuscript I think you might like based on your wish list. Any chance you’d be interested in a look?” I added in a brief synopsis, and sent it off.

Sure enough, they wanted the first twenty-five pages or so. Then the full request, and ultimately, acceptance and a contract.

In the end, my plan to write short stories to help get Gas Giant Gambit published worked, but not in the way I had expected. It wasn’t necessarily the publishing credit, it was the relationship I had created during the process.

No Right Way

The path I took to getting Gas Giant Gambit published was a little winding, but basically adheres to a fairly old-fashioned way of doing it. I took my cues from Stephen King and writers from that generation. In hindsight, I may have been too literal in my process–but on the other hand, Gas Giant Gambit is out, and I have a great relationship with my publisher.

I really do feel lucky. I’ve heard horror stories of authors getting screwed over by small presses, or having to change whole swaths of their story because of their publisher’s wishes.

My experience has been nothing short of incredible. Alex Parker Publishing has always made me feel like it was my story and they were there to support me. I’ve been fortunate to take advantage of their expertise when it comes to editing and marketing, while also remaining in complete creative control and carrying none of the financial burden (the original reason I felt I couldn’t self-publish).

No two paths to publishing will necessarily be the same. This was mine, and while it was frustrating and difficult at times, I wouldn’t change any of it. It’s made me a better writer and helped me build important relationships along the way.