Time for another Inspirational Story. This story will show you how determination and persistance can work miracles. I know it’s long but please read it.
There was a girl. Let’s call her Ana.
In 2011 Ana started writing a book. She never wanted to be a writer but she had a lot to say and share about her outlook on the world and society nowadays so she built it in a story and made a book out of it. As soon as she finished writing it 1.5 year later she was really proud of it, it was a good book hence she wanted to have it published. She started looking for a publishing house, she took part in every writing contest she could find. But it was for nothing.
She took a break and got back to it 2 years later. She changed a bit in the plot as she didn’t like some parts anymore and tried again – contacted a bunch of publishing houses yet it was still for nothing. She decided to print the book herself. She had a graphic made for a cover, a professional helping correcting the text and a proper bindery to make it into a book. She spent all her savings to get 180 copies. What did she do next? Having the book printed she started sending it to…publishing houses. Again. At that time it was 2015 so already 4 years in the making.
She gained some interest from 3 publishing houses but it didn’t work out as they wanted her to put more money into it. She wanted to find a publishing house that will fall in love with her book and will invest in it. After that she took a break again, this time for half a year.
In 2016 she decided to try it different way. She did a research and found a lot of blogs that write books reviews. The book got plenty good reviews, some blogs gave it 5/6, some 8/10 and wrote articles about it trying to bring attention to publishing houses to take that book in and publish it. One chapter got even published in a national newspaper. But still nothing. Still no publishing house interested in making it big.
Having lots of great reviews she decided to take it one step further and she reached out to well-known people in the industry. She managed to get in touch with a man who wrote dozens of books and was later a chairman of jury in the biggest literature awards in the country. He loved the book and wrote a great review. She got even an email from a famous director Krzysztof Zanussi („The Constant Factor”, „Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease”, „The Supplement”) that he sees potential in her book to make it into a movie.
With those 2 reviews from 2 big names she tried again. She packed her book with those reviews as a Xmas present and sent it to over 30 pubslishing houses for Christmas 2016. A month later she started calling each company to see if they got it. She has been calling to all companies EVERY WEEK for a whole year asking if they read it, if they like it etc. In the meantime she kept looking for more publishing houses and got to 44 companies on her list. She kept calling them until she had a proper answer YES or NO. She did not accept answers like „We will read it and will get in touch with you if we like it”, no. She asked how much time they needed to read it and said that she’ll call again to ask for the opinion. She made over 200 calls asking about the book. It lasted whole 2017. She kept hearing „NO” over and over again but she did not give up. 37th answer was „YES”. In the beginning of 2018 she found a publishing house that fell in love with her book and wanted to make it big.
Let’s call her by her real name now. It was Pola Rewako. It was me. My book is being published on February 13th after 7 years of trying to make it happen. This is my secret project i’ve been telling you about. J
Also, I will not stop here. I want to make it into a movie and translate it into English by 2021.