How visions of hybrids, superpowers, and rejections ended with me publishing my own books.
I decided that maybe I should put this and an article today because a lot of people don’t know who I am, what I write, or where I came from. So, here I go.
My name is Dominique Gibson. I’m an ESL teacher who spends the day teaching various age groups, leaving me room to only write either in the early morning hours before I go to work or late into the evening before I got to sleep. I try my best to use my time wisely.
Sometimes, it just doesn’t work out.
My first love has always been writing. I remember being an eight-year-old kid who thought it was a wonderful idea to write a story about a bank robber who ends up stealing a bag of money on the street. The story ends with him getting caught towards the end of the story. I will never forget how much I wanted to draw and write at the same time because of the books I read back in the 90’s.I wanted to be the next Ann M. Martin or R.L. Stine.
Then the years passed. I stop loving horror and switched to romance after reading His Secret Child by Beverly Barton. I was hooked ever since. Romance was going to be my new genre I wanted to write in.
But then I got stuck on how to write one.
That’s when my other love for reading romance novels came in with one name: Harlequin. I had made an attempt to write my first category romance back when I was in college going for my Bachelor’s Degree in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago. It was unsuccessful. However, I decided that I wasn’t going to give up my dream of becoming an author. I kept writing and reading up different romance novels until one stuck out to me more than the other genres. That genre?
Paranormal romance.
I loved the books where they had the werewolves in them but I became excited when authors included tigers and bears shifters too.
This marked the beginning of the first book in the Truson S.E.T. Series.
I tried writing a category romance throughout the years. I became excited when Harlequin came out with a new series for their line, Harlequin Nocturne. I tried my best to come up with a story that was suitable for their line only for it to be rejected. I went in a different direction: Young adult. I had read a few young adult novels during this time, including Twilight and Gossip Girls. I thought I should give it a shot so that’s what I did.
I had wrote more of a 90,000-word YA novel called The Electric Eel Bandit. In this book, the main character (Amanda) wakes up to a world where she turns into a hybrid and becomes a part of the Truson S.E.T. Bradford (The male love interest) tries his best to help her to ease into the new world while her life is in danger from an enemy who wants to kill her before she makes it into the team.
After multiple rewrites, I was finally ready to submit it to literary agents and publishers. At first, I was able to handle it when it came to the rejections. Four to five rejections didn’t seem too bad. I still had other options which means I still had hope. But then those single-digit rejections turned into ten to twenty rejections. I felt defeated. No one wanted my story of superhero hybrids battling criminals in the Young Adult market.
That’s when I came up with an idea to turn it from a young adult book into an adult book.
I rewrote the story and did a little research when it came to the paranormal romance genre. I had rewrote it to where I felt like I was ready to submit again to literary agents and publishers. I even got excited because now my book was ready for Halrequin Nocturne.
“Here I go. Here is my big chance.”
So, I sent it.
And…nobody didn’t want it. A part of me felt like I was getting closer to achieving my goal when I got to literary agents accepting my work. One said that they were interested but thinks I should write something else. Write something else? I thought. I don’t want to write something else. My heart belonged to the Truson S.E.T. I didn’t want to write anything else.
I decided that if I wanted to get my books out into the world, I was going to have to do this myself. After being haunted with visions of the scenes in my book, I decided to do a little bit of research to see how I was going to get it done. That’s when I decided to do something that completely took the internet by storm.
Self-publishing on Amazon.
I had researched countless stories on how people were making money self-publishing their books on Amazon KDP. The best part was when it stated that you could write your own novel without the help of anyone else. You could do it all yourself. This sounds like an excellent idea.
It was also during this time I had managed to scrape up enough money to pay for an editor to look over my work for an upcoming contest I wanted to enter in. I didn’t make the deadline when it came to the contest but after working on countless rewrites with my editor, I decided to go ahead and publish my first book in the Truson Super Elite Team Series, An Orman’s Revenge.
It became the happiest day of my life.
Seeing my book in my hands was the most incredible feeling I ever had. No other feeling can compare to having your first book in your hands for the first time. All the hard work that I experienced had finally paid off. But the story didn’t end there.
I wanted to keep going. I published two more books in the Truson S.E.T. series: An Orman’s Fate and An Orman’s Allegiance. I got to hold those books in my hands as well. Now, it’s 2026 and I am still working on bringing more books when it comes to this series.
That’s all for now. My only hope is that you will be able to read them here on my website and enjoy the world I created. Thanks.
Here is one of the rejection letters I received when I sent my book out in 2015. Enjoy.
Dear Dominique:
Thank you so much for allowing our agency to consider your material. Unfortunately, after carefully reviewing your query, we’ve determined that this particular project isn’t the right fit for our agency at this time. As I’m sure you know, the publishing industry changes swiftly now, as readers’ tastes and trends. As as result, our own agents needs shift and change, as well; therefore, we would like to encourage you to consider querying us with future projects as you may deem appropriate.
Again, thank you very much for allowing us this chance to consider your material, and we wish you all the best in your publishing endeavors.
Sincerely,
Assistant Literary Agent
Agent LLC
