My First Sale by Joanna Bourne
By Jane • Jun 27th, 2008 • Category: Interviews, Misc, Reviews • •
I remember Joanna Bourne first was mentioned to me last summer at the RWA convention in Dallas. I was told that this is an author to watch. Unfortunately the books weren’t going to be released until January so in googling, I found that Bourne had written a book, Her Ladyship’s Companion, a gothic romance in the early 80s. I ordered it and at the time, it only cost me a few dollars. They are now selling for $49.50 and up at Amazon. I think it says something about Bourne’s writing that her first book is now suddenly a collectible. She’s a writer to watch, someone whose work, even on her worst day, makes the historical genre better. Her third release, My Lord and Spymaster, is in stores now.
***
Oh man. This takes me back. The first book.
It was a sweet Regency with gothic elements … and doesn’t that tell you this was not just precisely recent?
This was the first fiction I’d written.
I pounded it out on a selectric typewriter. There was something called carbon paper … No. I won’t go there. Suffice it to say this was a long time ago and the woods were full of the cries of mating pterodactyls.
Having painfully tapped out the story, (I swear, it would have been faster to crochet the bloody manuscript.) I set out to sell it.
It is difficult to convey the depths of my ignorance. Grand Canyons of naïveté.. Mariana Trenches of nescience. I had never heard of RWA. I was, in the most vague and distant way, aware that writers could have agents, but didn’t have the least idea how to find one.
I had heard, somewhere, that you were supposed to send three chapters. I picked my three favorite chapters. (Just a note — Do not do this. You’re supposed to send in the first three chapters.) Time has mercifully hidden the details. Let us not lift that particular veil.
Synopsis? I had NEVER HEARD of a synopsis.
Do editorial offices sit around at lunch, snickering at the submissions they get? Do they, like, snigger and say, ‘You will not believe what I got in the mail this morning,’ and giggle over the bagels?
The generous folks at Avon did not point out my small errors. They asked to see the whole. Do not tell me there are no kind hearts in the storied bastions of New York publishing. Certainly they took pity on me.
So I sends the whole manuscript off. I took out a calendar and calculated how long it would take the manuscript to get to New York. Then I figured they’d have two or three manuscripts sitting on their desk they had to read first. Maybe — I stretched my imagination — maybe they’d have five or ten in the queue in front of them. I should hear back in about three weeks. Right? Maybe a month.
Long month for me. Many trips into town to the post office. Much interrogation of patient postal clerks. At the end of the second month I was perfectly certain something had happened to my manuscript. Sea monsters, ravaging New York. Mothra. Train robbers, making off with the mail. Pod people.
“I’ll call,” says I to myself, “and ask.” Grabbing destiny by both ears and the tail, I marched off and called Avon. I asked to speak to the Editorial Assistant. This would be, I knew, a woman of power and competence.
“Hi,” says I. “I’m Joanna Bourne and I sent you in a manuscript …” I consult my notes. They are in a spiral bound notebook. I was — really, things do not change all that much, do they? — clueless, but organized. “Seven weeks ago. It’s –”
“Wait a minute. I’ll … ” Puzzlement in the voice. There was a brief silence.
Then a new pickup clicked on the phone. “I was just about to call you,” the editor says. “Right this minute. We want to buy your book.”
So I never actually got the call. I made it.
I do remember being unable to string together a coherent sentence. Are editors used to filling in the pauses in the author’s, “oh my. Oh my. Wow. Gee. Oh wow …” with small talk? Do editors just take it on faith they don’t have a fumble-minded nitwit on the other end of the line? Certainly I must have sounded like one.
They were willing to pay me money for my writing. Folks would read about the world I’d created and bring my characters alive.
I was flabbergasted and scared and didn’t really believe any of this was real. That hasn’t changed yet, but at least now I’m coherent on the telephone.
Jane is a long time romance reader whose passion is, you guessed it, reading. Jane also does not like to talk about herself in the third person, but apparently this is the way that this biography thing works (although in a true biography, someone else would be writing this blurb). Anyway, currently Jane loves urban fantasy authors Patricia Briggs and Ilona Andrews. She's really excited about this year's crop of historicals including Joanna Bourne's The Spymaster's Lady and Sherry Thomas' Private Arrangements and the upcoming Loretta Chase Her Scandalous Ways.
She's looking for a good contemporary author. Email her with a recommendation!
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What a great story Joanna!
LOL. The tricks our imagination plays!
This story made me smile, and I’ve not even had my coffee yet. Thanks for sharing with us, Joanna! :-)
Great story, Joanna. Just wanted to let you know how much I’m enjoying your Spymasters.
Oh my gosh! What a great story. That really must be a first, the author making the call.
I laughed out loud at this part. What a wonderful story! Thanks so much for sharing it.
I loved The Spymaster’s Lady. Annique was magnificent! Can’t wait to read the next. Thanks for the call story.
I had to look up nescience but it was worth it!
But why did you wait so long to share the brilliance of your creativity with a second work? I adored the Spymasters Lady and cannot wait to read My Lord and Spymaster. I hope you write us many many more books!!!
As Ciara asked, “Why did you wait so long to write the second story?”
I loved the Spymaster’s Lady and am looking forward to My Lord and Spymaster.
Are you going to write Adrian’s story? His character is just waiting to be filled out.
“….faster to crochet the manuscript…”
“…I sent in my favorite three chapters…”
Ha ha ha!
What a wonderful story told in a magnificent voice! Loved every word.
This amazing writing voice is why we love your books, Joanna. Reading this story made me want to laugh and cry, and put me right there in the moment with you. Thanks for sharing this terrific anecdote, and here’s to MANY MORE books from you!
[...] think Joanna Bourne’s first sale story on Dear Author is my absolute most favourite yet. You should read [...]
I think Joanna gives some short answers about her long absence from publishing and when she’s going to write Adrian’s story in this interview at AAR.
Disclosure: I’m in the interview too but you can skip my part. :-)
Just read ‘My Lord and Spymaster’ today, and really enjoyed it. And I did buy a copy of ‘Her Ladyship’s Companion’, but at a non-collectible price.
(I just checked - on Amazon.co.uk, it starts at £58, and goes up to £265. If anyone wants to pay £265 for a copy, I’ll reluctantly part with mine…)
Just thinking about that - those prices suggest there is a real demand for the book. And, in that there is a connection to the current series, I imagine that there will be many readers who’d like to read it for the sake of completeness.
Would the rights have reverted to Ms Bourne by now? Would it be possible to make it available again - perhaps as an ebook?
Marianne - That was my thought too. I would think that even in e-form, she’d be able to sell a few copies.
Joanne, too funny! Loved your call story.
Thank you so much for the kind words about the ‘Spymasters’. And (or) I’m glad you liked the ‘First Sale’ story.
What I really want to hear is the other side — an agent or editor’s story about the ‘First Calls’ they’ve put through.
I imagine it would include lines like:
“… found the phone again. It had dropped in the sink …”
“… yelling ‘It’s the editor! It’s the editor!’ in the background …”
“… bit her tongue, so it sounded like, ‘thath wunnerthul …”
“… a minute of absolute silence. Then a gurgling not unlike that of the character she killed off in Chapter Eleven …”
As to Her Ladyship’s Companion — the long-ago gothic that is, if I may I say so, deservedly Out of Print.
I have dropped it on my agent’s desk,
(thump-lette.)
(It’s only a little book.)
I will let her decide what to do with it.
Levelling rickety tables comes to mind, or propping open windows, now that summer is upon us.
Hi Sherry — (waves)
Yes, the AAR interview is a cool interview, but largely because you were half of it. Is there anyone who hasn’t read Private Arrangements? If so, they should rectify that immediately.
And the countdown begins on Delicious.