Whew! Okay, a couple of publishers are interested in Sleeping Dogs, but they're having a problem with part of the book coming from Max’s (the dog’s) POV (point of view). I’ve had a lot of people say the same thing before they read the book, but almost all of them have ended up saying it’s their favorite part of the book once they’ve finished.

 But reality must be observed on the road to having a book  published. So, here is how it really works.

When you send a manuscript to an agent or publisher they read the first line. If it doesn’t grab them they toss it. If there is a misspelled word or misplaced comma, or the format is wrong, or they just don’t like your writing style… they toss it.

If your story makes it past the first line hook requirement, the powers that be will then read through the first paragraph. The same strict requirement is adhered to. If it doesn’t continue to hook them, they don’t like the style, has a grammatical error, misspellings, or format error, it gets tossed.

If the paragraph makes it through all that… they move on to the first page, then through the first chapter. If your writing has continued to keep them hooked to this point a misspelling or misplaced comma, might not garner an immediate tossing anymore, (but why take chances), allowing them to make it through the first fifty pages.

After that all you have to do is have the rest of the book live up to the first fifty pages and you’re through.

Unfortunately agents have the same trouble getting your manuscript through the editors that we writers have getting it past the agents.

So, even though the editors might love Max’s POV by the end of the book, the reality is that they will never get to the end to find that out. My job, as the writer, is to get them to finish the book, loving it the whole way through.

Personally I think the dog perspective from the third person POV works very well. So does my agent. But that will never be able to be explored if we can’t get the book read through to that point. And if it’s that hard a sell at this stage I have to figure that it will be an even harder sell to the editor’s board and all the other department heads that have to give their stamp of approval in order for the book to be published.

The truth is writing is a business and, as I’ve said before, nothing breeds success like success. So the important thing now is to make the book publishable. To do this I am rewriting like crazy. I have refigured the book three different new ways. My next step is to meet with my agent and lay the three new rewrites out for her and see which one we both think has the best chance of selling.
I think I know which one she will like best, but I also think it isn’t the one we will decide on because it completely leaves out Max’s POV, having everything seen through Gil’s eyes.

The way I plan to sell her on this idea is to explain that once we get the series going and build a reading audience, then we can introduce Max’s POV. I’m actually kind of excited by the prospect.

Okay. Time to set up the meeting. So start praying and hopefully we will see Sleeping Dogs in print by the end of the year.