Janeene asked Amanda Heger:

Amanda - how long did it take to write Without Borders and can you talk about how you found your publisher?

Amanda Heger Oh man. This is a complicated question. I'll try to keep it brief.

I got the idea to write Without Borders in February or March of 2012. I had no clue what I was doing, but I came home at night and tried anyway. By August 2012 I had a (truly hideous) first draft. I rewrote and revised for another four to five months. Then I started the search for an agent.

In traditional publishing, you generally need a literary agent to get your work in front of editors. So you write up a short pitch for your manuscript and send it out to agents who you think would be a good fit. They can request to read the manuscript or they can tell you to jump in a lake. It's not fun, to say the least.

I was exceptionally lucky and found a fantastic agent at a fabulous literary agency after a short time. She and I went through a couple more rounds of revisions together, and when that was over she made a list of editors she thought would be interested in Without Borders. We sent it to them and waited. And waited. And waited. And then one of them said yes.

So that's the short-long version. Let me know if you have other questions about the publication process.

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