In 2008, I began submitting the manuscript to contests. I entered the Zondervan First Novel Contest, the Amazon Writing Contest, the Genesis Contest (a couple of times) and a few smaller contests, and never received one word of encouragement. However, my friend Susanne Lakin won the Zondervan First Novel Contest at Mount Hermon in 2009 for her novel Someone to Blame, receiving a publishing contract as first prize. Soon after that, she contracted for three of her fantasy books and was suddenly zooming on her way to publication. Although she is by far the most creative people I've ever known, much more talented than I, her success encouraged me and kept me entering contests, submitting queries, and not quitting when the rejections came.

I had seen God use the book in the lives of my family members, opening up discussions I would otherwise not have been able to accomplish. I wondered if that had been God's main purpose for my call to writing. 

This year, I ran across a reference to the Orange Country Christian Writers Conference. On their website they announced a contest, the winner to be named at the May 1 conference and to receive a publishing contract from Westbow Press, the self-publishing arm of Thomas Nelson. Being a small conference, it wasn't a big investment. I had to promise to attend in order to enter.

By then I had rewritten Payne & Misery  a full ten times. I felt as if I'd done everything I could do to make it better. The contest sponsors had sent me an e-mail informing me that I had placed in the top ten entries and making an appointment with one of the judges for late afternoon. I had a feeling the manuscript would place well in the contest, after all the remediation it had received, but my most fervent hope was that it would please and glorify God. He had supplied the desire to write and the creativity. 

As I drove toward Irvine that weekend, I prayed for God's will and for His guidance. The all day workshops and speakers at the conference were informative and entertaining. I met a lovely agent and actually felt a connection to her style of work. I had not felt that with any agents I had previously met in other conferences. She requested that I send her my work. Then I went to my interview with the contest judge.

Kathi Macias, author/mentor/teacher, has an outstanding and varied list of accomplishments. Besides that, she's a lovely woman of God who delights in encouraging others. At our appointment, she spoke of my novel in glowing terms and her praise lifted my spirits. She advised me that the book deserved to be published and whether I won or not, I should do so. I inquired about her recommendations and she said I should use Westbow Press. She assured me I would be pleased with their product and that it would give me a great advantage for future books to be published with Thomas Nelson. There were advantages to self-publishing I had not considered, like greater profit per book and retaining the rights instead of selling them. It would mean I could choose what I wanted to keep in my book instead of having an editor delete what the publishing company chose to. The package she recommended includes free books, some marketing, e-books, hard and soft cover editions, and printed marketing material for the author to mail out. The price of the package wasn't especially high--$2600, with the small discount offered by Westbow at the conference. In my previous research of self-publishing, I had found much higher initial costs at other companies. Not that the price mattered at that point, since my husband and I had been living by faith for two years already with absolutely no extra money to invest in self-publishing. $2600 or $26,000--we couldn't afford it.

That Saturday, I arrived in the main lecture room feeling quite encouraged about a possible agent and the publishworthiness of my novel. After preliminaries, they began to call the contest winners. Third place.  Second place--they called my name. As I stood, I felt only a twinge of disappointment because it meant I wouldn't be able to get the novel published right away. But that twinge vanished when I made my way to the front and accepted my certificate. A glow of satisfaction and contentment about being in God's best settled over me. At last, a little outside validation from the writing community.

I left the conference to visit family members (who wish to remain anonymous) before heading home. After a couple of days' together, I prepared to leave. My loved one handed me an envelope and said she wanted to contribute to my writing. I refused at first, but she insisted. I headed toward the next place I wanted to visit. There I received another unsolicited envelope. Amazed at their incredible generosity and timing, I totaled the money after I started home. It came to $2700. God had provided for publication in a way I would never have expected. Truly nothing is impossible for God.

So I contracted for Payne & Misery to be self-published. The whole process will take about ninety days--another advantage of self-publishing. I don't know what the next step will be. I know nothing about marketing, but I know I will have to learn fast. Not only the success of this venture, but future sales of my books depend on moving forward into what God has for me next.  I will step out in faith, as He has taught me to do over this six year journey, and be surprised with the joy of what He has prepared. To God be the glory. Great things He hath done.