I’ve never read Robin Owens but I have friends who are fans, ardent fans, of her work. She was saddled with this unfortunate cover on Heart Journey. I figure that the model’s real hair must have been horrible for the art department to decide that this bad photoshop of a Ken doll wig would have been better.

Related posts:

1. Fix it! (How to turn CoverFail into Cover Win)
2. It’s All the Same to Me: Cover Art Recycling
3. Is Baker & Taylor Too Important to Fail?

***

This is sort of my second "first sale" story here at Dear Author. I know-how did that happen, right?

See, three years ago, my first Sydney Croft book released, so my writing partner for the Croft books, Stephanie Tyler, and I talked about that sale, because it was our first.

Sort of.

It was our first single-title sale, but just weeks before that- (queue tinkly dream-sequence-flashback sound effects)

Hurricane Katrina had really messed up my life. We lost everything, and my son and I were living with my parents in Washington state while my husband stayed on his Coast Guard boat in Mississippi where he was still stationed. I'd gotten back up on the writing horse, and was working on the Croft project with Stephanie, and trying to figure out what I should do on my own.

(more tinkly music)

Several months earlier, I'd entered a short story in the Kensington Brava contest that was judged by Kate Duffy. I did very well in the contest, but didn't win. Still, Kate called to discuss what she liked and didn't like, and offered to take a second look if I revised.

So I did. And she didn't buy it.

But after Katrina, Kate, who was an incredibly generous person, offered a full manuscript critique to the high bidder in an auction that my friends and colleagues put together to benefit me (to this day, I still tear up when I think about how the romance community rallies when things get bad.)

I emailed her to thank her, and to my surprise, she asked for my phone number. Then she called, and we talked (well, I mostly babbled like an idiot) for nearly an hour about writing, the projects I had on my hard drive (I had evacuated with my laptop, thankfully) and she asked me to send her something.

She also told me to submit that novella she'd rejected to another publisher, because she believed it would sell. It wasn't right for her, but she knew it was right for someone.

So I sent her a proposal, and I'll never forget her words: "Damn, girl, you can write! But you can't plot for shit!"

Heh.

Anyway, she didn't buy that story either, though she loved it, and she spent another hour talking to me to help me work out the plot issues. She believed in me, believed in my writing, and told me I'd better not ever give up. I said I wouldn't, and I told her that someday, I would sell something to her.

Not long after that, I got The Call. No, not from Kate Duffy at Kensington, but from Red Sage. They were who I'd sent that novella manuscript to. It was a Saturday, and on Monday I called Kate and told her I'd sold.

I seriously think she was as happy as I was.

So that was my first sale. Flesh To Fantasy (affiliate link) released in December 2006 in Secrets Volume 18.

And you know what? I did sell to Kensington. A few months ago, just before Kate passed away, I was invited to write a novella for them for inclusion in an anthology. Though Kate wasn't the one to buy it, I somehow think she had a hand in it.

Just like she had a hand in my very first sale.

Related posts:

1. My First Sale: Stephanie Tyler & Larissa Ione, When One Action Heroine Just Isn’t Enough
2. REVIEW: Snowbound by Larissa Ione
3. REVIEW: Pleasure Unbound by Larissa Ione

***

Usually it takes very strong margaritas to get me to tell my first sale story. After all these years it still makes me wince at my ignorance. But I started writing before the Internet made it so easy to network with other writers. I didn’t belong to any writing groups or know anyone else who was writing. I just decided one summer I was going to write a book.

After a few months, I deemed it "ready’ and opened up the cover of my favorite books (Silhouette Intimate Moments) to see where to send it. I got the phone number for the company in New York and called to tell the receptionist I had a book I wanted to send in and asked how to go about it J

She huffily informed me that they didn’t accept unsolicited manuscripts. I had no idea what that meant, but could tell from her tone that it was a bad thing. She finally gave a long-suffering sigh and told me about tip sheets and query letters. I queried and got an invite to submit and sent it in.

I figured I’d hear in about six weeks. Four months later I got a two-page rejection letter from a senior editor detailing the work’s strengths and weaknesses and inviting me to revise and resubmit. I did, but I’d wised up a little. This time when I sent that first manuscript in, I immediately started another. That was lucky because this time it took six months to get yet another two page rejection letter. Manuscript two had been submitted, so I revised the first yet again and sent it in, too.

When Silhouette called I was actually home from bed with laryngitis. Leslie Wainger’s (then senior editor of Intimate Moments) assistant called. She said she was just tracking down my contact information because-’AHEM-’I had neglected to include it with my manuscript. She went on to say that she was quite excited because she’d found me in the slush pile. I had no idea what that was, but thought she said flush pile, and that didn’t sound good! She told me Leslie was reading the manuscript as we spoke and that she’d be calling me later.

After we hung up, I started to wonder if I’d dreamed it. Maybe it had just been a Vicks Vapor Rub induced hallucination! But Leslie did call a couple of hours later and make an offer on manuscript two. She asked if I had any other works and I told her I had another in their offices. A couple months later she bought manuscript one, as well. So while I can claim to have sold the first book I wrote, it did go through some extensive surgeries first J

Related posts:

1. My First Sale by Tracy Ann Warren
2. My First Sale by Jackie Barbosa
3. My First Sale by Diana Rowland

***

Well, it’s really a tale of two sales, not one.

The first manuscript I ever sold was a short story called Carnally Ever After. I originally wrote it for an Ellora’s Cave call for submissions in early 2007. (Ann Aguirre must take partial credit for my ever having written it, since it was through her blog I found out about the call.) Ellora’s Cave didn’t contract the manuscript, and because it was less than 15,000 words long, there were only a limited number of other publishers I could submit it to. When I did receive a contract offer, it was from Cobblestone Press, and that offer came within eight hours of submission. (The acquiring editor said the title caught her eye and pushed it to the top of the slush pile, so don’t let anyone tell you titles don’t matter!)

I have to admit, however, that as thrilled as I was to have found a home for my manuscript, I didn’t really think of that contract as my first sale. The story was so short, it just didn’t ‘count’ in my mind. But it did set me on the road to the contract offer that I do think of as my first sale, because when I wrote Carnally, the idea for a sequel started to form in my mind. That sequel, a novella titled Wickedly Ever After, was the manuscript I submitted to my editor at Kensington Books.

I didn’t have a lot of hope when I submitted that manuscript that I’d make a sale, though. Novellas are a hard sell in New York from what I hear. But I had outlines for two more sequels, and I knew the Aphrodisia line wasn’t averse to putting out single-author anthologies. So after I sent the full, I sat back on my heels, bit my nails, and waited not-so-patiently for the rejection letter.

The actual ‘call’ came at 4:00 in the afternoon, quite a surprise since I live on the west coast and it’s well after business hours in New York by then. I knew the second the editor identified himself by name that I’d made a sale, and I honestly don’t remember much after that. The details of the offer pretty much flew over my head, because all I could think at that moment was that a) I’d sold and b) I needed an agent–like yesterday! Fortunately, I wound up with the lovely Kevan Lyon to represent me.

The resulting book, Behind the Red Door, officially comes out tomorrow (though I hear rumors the online retails began shipping it last week).

Related posts:

1. My First Sale by Jocelyn Drake
2. My First Sale by Mindy Klasky
3. My First Sale by Tracy Ann Warren

***

I sold in January 2001. In November of 2000, I’d given up writing for publication. I wearied of struggling every spare moment to craft good stories. HeartMate was at HardShell and Berkley, and I WOULD keep writing, but it wouldn’t dominate my life.

I don’t often remember to check my voice mail, so it was Superbowl Sunday and I was washing my comforter and cleaning, enjoying the freedom from guilt that I wasn’t writing. The air vent suckers were supposed to call and set up an appointment for Monday (thus the cleaning, you know how particular those air vent suckers are). I’d vacuumed and taken out the trash, so I decided to check my messages.

THE CALL. “I don’t usually leave messages like this on answering machines, but I really enjoyed HeartMate and want to make you an offer.” NO! Listen again. And again. Between pants, start calling critique buddies, first Sharon Mignerey, “Sharon,” gasp, “Sharon….” I don’t recall what I said, something like “gobble, pant, gobble, spit,” ending with hyperventilated breathing.

“Robin, has something happened to your Mom?” asks a concerned Sharon.

“Berkley!” I shriek. We talk. I get on-line and INSIST everyone in my e-crit croup come to the chat room. There I yell, faint and carry on. At the end of the day, I put away the brass-rubbing that I’d broken when I’d reeled into a wall and I notice that my cat Maddox (now known as “The Cover Cat”) has groomed himself on my clean, beige comforter, leaving tufts of black hair all over it. Life goes on.

May all our writing dreams come true, Robin.

Related posts:

1. My First Sale by Sharon Shinn, Every Sale Is Cause for Celebration
2. GUEST REVIEW: Beauty by Robin McKinley
3. REVIEW: The Raven and the Rose by Doreen Owens Malek