Author Sean McCartney on becoming a published author...
Athena's Two Cents:
Although I have not yet read this book, I am completely sure the entire series will be very appealing to middle school students. I know my 12 year old son will love this book since he is a huge fan of history and mystery and action--all things which Sean McCartney has put into this first book, The Secrets of the Magical Medallion. Of course, there is also the whole evil vs. good theme and how can anyone go wrong with that? Check out his website and book trailer HERE.
Brief Summary: (from author's website)
A Treasure Hunting Legend...
Four Ordinary Kids...
Two Magical Medallions...
Pursued By An Ancient Evil...
In One Extraordinary Adventure.
Join the Treasure Hunters Clubas they unlockThe Secrets of the Magical Medallions.
...Some Secrets Are Better Left Alone
The Road to Publication...Sean McCartney
My name is Sean McCartney and I am the author of the new young adult action adventure series entitled THE TREASURE HUNTERS CLUB: SECRETS OF THE MAGICAL MEDALLIONS which comes out July 6th and is available for preorder on my website www.treasurehuntersclubbook.com and Amazon.
My road to publication is probably like many others. I started getting serious about writing novels in 2001. I wrote my first, THE 65th TEAM in the summer of 2001 and sent it out waiting for all the offers to come in. The only thing that came through the mail was…
REJECTION! And lots of it.
I was stunned. Didn’t these publishers know that every word I put down was gold? That every thought must be perfect because I took the time? So I wrote another novel and another and the same thing kept happening.
REJECTION! What I didn’t understand at the time and after years of working on novels I I see now was that I did not respect the words, the sentences or the paragraphs. I left storylines hanging. I assumed the reader would get it. The truth was I didn’t get it.
A friend of mine pointed out something that Mark Twain said and I have used as my guideline for the rest of my novels. “The difference between the right word and the wrong word is like the difference between lightening and a lightening bug.”
With that idea in mind I wrote a fantasy novel called BLACK KNIGHT CHRONICLES: RISE OF EVIL and sent it out. I was able to land an agent with that book and we embarked on looking for a publisher.
My agent sent the manuscript to all the big time publishers and some took a look but nothing came of it. They seemed to like the idea but I was told the market was saturated with fantasy books about knights and dragons and another wasn’t needed.
This was frustrating because during this time I mapped out a five book series and even wrote the second book to BLAC KNIGHT CHRONICLES called SHADOW WARS.
Finally after eight years I decided to write something I would have found myself reading as a kid. I went back to my youth and remembered all the friends I had and what we liked to do and thus THE TREASURE HUNTERS CLUB was born.
I really liked it. Of course I liked the other ones too but I decided to take a new approach with sending the book out for publication. I only queried small publishers. No agent this time, just me.
The rejections still came but there was a different tone to what came back. The publishers liked the ideas and read some of the story but with the economy tanking at the time they didn’t feel they could do TREASURE HUNTERS CLUB justice.
They say when you win the lottery it only takes one time to play. When I received the email from Mountianland Publishing wanting to publish my book I felt like I’d won the lottery.
It happened on July 17th, 2009 and for the next year I went through the ups and downs of working with a small, relatively new publisher to get to this point: My book’s release on July 6th, 2010.
Now the story turns to promotion and getting the word out, but that is for another time.
I would encourage, because begging is undignified, to get yourself a copy of THE TREASURE HUNTERS CLUB: SECRETS OF THE MAGICAL MEDALLIONS and kick back and enjoy a fun, fast paced and exciting adventure.
Thanks again for the opportunity and I hope to hear from all of you.
Sean
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