My mind is numb

I've spent the last two days reading and rereading the contract I've been offered for my picture book. It is mind-numbing. I'm still not sure if I have a grip on it or not. I was glad I'd recently joined scbwi and had their sample contract to refer to. I had some wording added that they suggested. Why can't they just write all that stuff in regular english? It would be so much easier.

Unfortunately I'm not much of a negotiator. At least it was all online. (This publisher does everything online, by the way, which is really great for us writers, especially the shy ones.) I would love to have an agent someday to take care of all this stuff for me. Maybe once I have a picture book under contract they will take me seriously. Maybe.

But really, I feel pretty lucky. I don't sub that much. Only when I can finally get a cover/query letter perfected, which takes me a very long time(after I've spent an extremely long time getting the story to the point I feel it's ready) do I sub anything. It takes me forever to customize the letter to a publisher. That is really hard for me.

This story went out to three publishers, got one form and two requests. One request ended with a phone call, because I had an acceptance from the third. I am completely amazed. And I didn't think I'd have anything exciting to blog about. So reading the contract isn't exciting. Having a picture book accepted sure is!