Rejected / dejected

I must say, first of all, how bowled over with appreciation I have been the past month by the overwhelming support I have received during our effort to earn my latest book a berth in a special publishing program at Kindle.

More on that in a minute. First, I must wallow a bit.

It’s 3:30 a.m. I was awakened some 45 minutes ago by a storm alarm on my phone. After reading it, I glanced at my email, which I’ve been watching closely the last couple of days, and saw the letter for which I’ve been waiting.

I shouldn’t have looked in the middle of the night.

“Dear Steve Martaindale,” it began. “We want to thank you for your participation in Kindle Scout and all of the effort you have put into the submission and campaign process. Unfortunately…”

I shouldn’t have looked. Now there is no sleep.

What’s next?

Maybe not on this site but in private messages to friends and followers, I’ve been saying that it would be OK if the book is not selected. This is the fifth book in the series and, if they’ve not caught on by now, maybe it’s time to let JP (my lead character) ride off into the sunset. End the series. Determine what next I should do with my life.

When one door closes, another opens … all of that.

And such is what I intend to do. (“Intend to do,” yeah, that leaves a little wiggle room.)

What’s going to happen now with this book … I intend … is I am going to rewrite the ending. Don’t worry, I won’t kill off JP. I already know, basically, what will happen. Nope, no further clues to be given except to say I will leave it so the series can be resurrected should some phenomenon occur and there is a public outcry for more.

Then, I will publish “The Reporter and the Marmot” myself, as I did the first four books. Like them, it will be available in paperback and through Kindle. If you were kind enough to nominate the book during the Scout program, they should notify you when that happens unless you opted out. To make sure you know, follow this blog by clicking the banner at the top of the right column because I won’t make a big deal of it on Facebook and Twitter, just an announcement or two. No more private messages, for sure.

Yep, I’ll keep the blog. We’ll see where that goes.

OK, you’re possibly wondering when to expect the book. Honestly, this is occurring at a bad time.

Leah and I are hooking up our RV and heading north in, oh, about six hours, give or take. One week from today, we’re starting our five-week walk of the Erie Canal, end-to-end, some 360 miles. Follow along with us at WalkTheErieCanal.com. As soon as we complete the walk, we’ll start our summer jobs, returning to Darien Lake Amusement Park in western New York.

That means I will be tight on time for the next couple of months. I could find time, energy and inspiration to finish the book during all of this, but I kind of doubt it. So, it might be out next week or it might be the end of July … or anyplace in between. Sorry about that.

So, here I am, considering figuratively burying an entire cast of characters that have come to life in my imagination over the past 15 years. Turning the page of my own story, fearful the next sheet may be blank.

Yeah, I may wallow in self-pity just a little bit, but I will be all right. Please, please, please … don’t join in. That would just prolong the process, delay learning what is indeed on that next page.

But let me end this where it began.

I appreciate the hundreds of you who nominated my book.

Several people told me they did not have an Amazon account but created one so they could vote. One very special person decided her husband should nominate it, too. Not only did he not have an account, he didn’t even have an email … so she created an email for him. Welcome to the 21^st century, kind sir.

Many of you not only nominated the book but asked friends to do the same. I’ve seen a lot of them respond to your Facebook posts that they participated. That’s special, indeed.

I hope all of you understand just how uplifting this has been, the support you’ve given. I thank you.

Let’s turn the page.