Going Forward with Publication: Cage of Skin and Bone

In early January I promised a valiant effort to find representation for the novel Cage of Skin and Bone. Today I reached the 5 month mark of that attempt after having contacted 21 prospective agents. Three agents requested part or all of the manuscript before politely declining. Eight more declined the query outright, again very politely. Ten never responded. The response / no response split is typical of what I've encountered before.

Let me just say this: I very much appreciate those who took the time to respond. I know agents are slammed by a million queries on top of the time they must spend serving their existing client base, so anyone taking the time to respond, no matter how briefly, has my undying respect!

Anyway, having exhausted my pool of patience for this particular work, I am proceeding with self-publication. The last round of copy editing is nearly complete and the cover is ready to go. Expect to see the novel in publication by the end of June.

One positive side effect of the five month hiatus is the time it provided me to outline the rest of the series. Crissa's story will go on! For three novels, anyway. A mammoth undertaking, but I am ready! (A mammoth undertaking ... get it? Mammoth? Undertaking? And with the image of a mammoth? You see how I did that? Pretty clever, huh!)