Publishing a Book with PJ Caldas

By the time I finished writing and rewriting my novel, “The Girl From Wudang” had taken up 5 years of my life. It went through at least eight very different drafts before it was good enough for pitching to a good publisher. That’s when I realized the work had just started.

As a best-selling author in Brazil, I have been able to publish my four novels with just the right introduction and some contacts. There are no intermediaries required.

MOVING TO THE STATES

In America, I soon found out, I needed an agent. I had to write a summary, a query letter, and beg to be read all over again. Then be accepted by someone who believed in my work so much, they would work for free until they managed to sell it. It was a fascinating new element that soon became a daunting chore and later, a massive frustration. But I had been through long journeys before – my first book took almost ten years to get picked – so I pushed forward.

It took me another full year until an agent said yes. But the work didn’t end there…one of the conditions was that I make some pretty deep adjustments to my novel. Once again, my only choice was to suck it up. After six months, we were ready for pitching. I could not wait!

Then, the pandemic happened. Like most people, my world came to a screeching halt. The bad news began when I found out that my agent got one of the first cases of Covid-19. This slowed us down, but she soon got better, and we were back in pitch mode again.

THE BAD LUCK JUST NEVER ENDS

Unfortunately, the bad luck continued. Without foot traffic at regular bookstores, Amazon had become the only significant source of book sales. The publishing industry was no longer interested in writers without a large audience since virtual book shopping was now the #1 way to make sales.  I understood the change, but, as a known author abroad, that was a kick in the face. My main audience was back in Brazil, and I had not yet built up a fan base in the US. It was a sharp reminder that I was nobody again.

To make things worse, the difficulties imposed by covid deteriorated the relationship I had with the agent and, after all that work, two years later, we decided to part ways. I was alone… again.

At first, the plan was to find another agent. But doing some research to better understand the landscape, I decided to try something different. Back in Brazil, I had worked with both small and big publishers but sold more with the smaller one. I guess it was because, with my background in advertising, boutique publishers would give me more space to influence my own marketing decisions. Reading about these smaller boutiques, I realized something important: some were open to queries directly from authors.

I gave it a shot. My first step was to look for the most interesting small publishers in America and even begin reaching out to a few of them. The focus was on small shops specialized in fantasy, adventure, thrillers or sci-fi, hoping to get them excited with the action, or the technology behind my story. But honestly, I knew those genres didn’t really fit with what I had. 

THE GIRL FROM WUDANG

The idea behind “The Girl from Wudang” comes from 40 years of practicing martial arts. It came from all those legends I listened to growing up, of masters of kung fu creating styles inspired by animals fighting. Cranes, tigers, vipers, praying mantis… As a kid, I was obsessed with ants, bees, and insect colonies in general, so I always wondered “what would it be like of multiple fighters, with different fighting styles, could think as one”? Years later, that became the idea behind my story, and I needed someone who would get the cultural nuance of that premise.

One day, after going through hundreds of websites and being ready to give up, I found one. A publisher proud of telling stories between Asia and America. One who understood character-driven stories, but who had also published martial arts books, including Bruce Lee’s! At that point, I knew: they were the company that I wanted to work with.

Tuttle Publishing changed my life!

A TURNING POINT

Such clarity was comforting and rewarding. I wrote to them. Introduced myself and my story. To my delight, it only took them 24h to reply asking for the manuscript.

I am very anxious by nature, but for this, I waited patiently. This opportunity felt so RIGHT that I didn’t reach out to anyone else. At this point, I wouldn’t even consider another publisher. If they said no, I would have continued with applying to other publishers, but I was really hoping that they would say Yes! IF they rejected me, maybe I would have tried to work with an agent again, despite my previous bad experience. 

All of my worrying and anxious waiting soon disappeared, for a month later, they wrote back with an offer!

“This is the perfect book for us,” Tuttle said. Their terms were fair, so I said yes! Since that day, we’ve been working on polishing the manuscript and planning the release.

PLOT TWIST

And a plot twist (maybe a premise twist): remember when I talked about the idea of kung fu style inspired by bees? Well, in order to make it doable in the story, I had to bring some futuristic brain tech and even some artificial intelligence characters into the story too. So I thought: what if I could have this entire launch produced by A.I. as well?

That sounded interesting but brought its own challenges. Especially the need to act fast. A.I. is developing so rapidly, that anything may get old in a matter of weeks. I just couldn’t afford to wait for a few months prior to the release. Any worthy idea I had, had to be done immediately.

That’s why the marketing campaign started so early. I’m doing book trailers, social media posts, and cover explorations all created by A.I. and launching them as soon as they’re ready. Even this article was written with a combination of a human writer AND artificial intelligence, which was a first for me. So, what do you think? Did the machines do a good job?