Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Friday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. In the last 10 years, New Orleans-born, Thailand-reared, Sabrina Jeffries‘ has penned 14 Regency romances and four novellas—becoming a regular on both the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists in the process. A lifelong Jane Austen fan, Jeffries earned a doctorate in English from Tulane. She writes what she enjoys reading: “lighter, sexier historical romances, with more dialogue and more sensuality.” Her latest story can be found in the Christmas Anthology, Snowy Night With a Stranger.  (I know alot of Dear Author readers like Christmas Anthologies).  
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Some of you probably know I started my writing career as Deborah Martin and Deborah Nicholas. Since that was nearly 18 years ago, I can barely remember my first call. So I’m going to talk about my first call as Sabrina Jeffries, because that was the one that really launched my career. And when it came, my life was in the toilet.

First, a little background—in 1996, my career was in flux. …

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Friday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. New York Times Bestselling Author, Marie Bostwick, writes stories about women for women. Her latest release, A Single Thread, is in stores now.
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When my agent, Jill Grosjean, called to tell me that Kensington Publishing had indicated an interest in buying my first novel, I was elated. But as weeks and eventually months passed without an offer, my confidence began to waver.

“If they really wanted it,” I moaned to Jill, “they’d have said so by now. They hate it. Not the editor, she’s great, but somebody else. Someone in accounting. Or the mailroom. Or…I don’t know who, but someone read it, hated it, and put the brakes on the deal! Probably the editor hasn’t called because she doesn’t want hurt my feelings!”

Jill made that growling sound she emits when she thinks I’m being overly dramatic, a sound I hear pretty often. “Don’t be ridiculous. Editors have no problem telling authors a book has been rejected. It’s their …

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Friday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Cindy Gerard writes romantic suspense.  She has a trilogy, Black Ops, Inc., out this fall.
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Hey all. My first sale story probably mirrors a lot of authors. The truth is, it falls into the ‘if I knew then what I know now’ category, I probably wouldn’t be published. I was so naïve. Such a baby – rhetorically speaking – and so ignorant of the business. Long story short, I was in love with LaVryle Spencer’s work – who among us doesn’t love and miss LaVyrle?? Anyway, I’d exhausted her complete library – or so I thought until I discovered some old titles but couldn’t get them. So I wrote to her. That was before the days of e-mail (yes, Virginia, there is a pre-web era many of us survived, but just barely). But I digress. She wrote back. Told me she wrote to me personally because my letter was so articulate. In my mind that …

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Friday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Mindy Klasky writes paranormal romances for Harlequin and fantasy books for ROC. Her book , Magic And The Modern Girl, is in stores now and an excerpt is here.
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Once upon a time, a girl wrote a novel. She submitted the novel to an agent, who agreed almost immediately to represent her. The agent shopped around the novel for six years, without a successful sale. The girl became upset with her agent. She fired her agent. Twice. But then she took him back. Both times.

But the girl wasn’t an absolute idiot. While the agent was shopping around the girl’s first novel, the girl wrote another one. She sent it to the agent when it was complete. She wrote, “This novel is much better than the other one.”

The agent wrote back. He said, “There comes a time in every relationship….”

I’m the girl who got a “Dear Jane” letter from my first agent. …

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Friday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Except this is Wednesday, you say. Well, yes, I double booked which means bonus for Dear Author readers. Cody McFadyen’s second book, The Darker Side, is out on the bookshelves now.
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My first sale came after a long and what I like to think of (with writer’s melodrama) as bloody series of events. Events that involved violence, soul searching and screaming at the moon. Events that tested friendships and nearly broke a marriage only to truly break it later.

What events?

Why, money-troubles of course. I’m flip about it as I write this now… but maybe not really. There’s still a kind of haunting-uncomfortable-sickly feeling that comes over me when I really remember what that was like.

We’d had our own business, my wife and I, and it had been successful for some time. Unfortunately, we hadn’t read the winds of change very well. Less and less people were in need of, or demanding, our services. We started to hemorrhage money …

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Friday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Deirdre Martin writes contemporary romances for Berkley, most of which feature a member of the fictional New York Blades. Body Check, her first sale, is one of my favorite contemporary books and Martin is one of my favorite contemporary authors. While every book in the series hasn’t worked for me, I like her voice and her very smart heroines. Her book 7th book, Power Play, has an official release date of October 7, 2008, but may be in stores now.
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I’ve always written. Maybe it’s because my father was a high school English teacher who encouraged me, or maybe it’s because I loved to read. Maybe it’s a combination of both. But whatever the reason, there have always been stories inside me that needed to be told.

My first foray into fiction was in first grade, when I wrote a book about Linus and Lucy from “Peanuts” that a boy in my class illustrated. By sixth …

Today is the start of an exciting new series called “My First Sale.” Every Friday morning until we run out of letters, we’ll post an author’s first sale story. If you’ve got one, email it to Jane.
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Nora Roberts needs no introduction but I’ll provide one anyway. There are more than 295 million copies of her books in print. Over the past 23 years, she sells an average of 21 books per minute. MINUTE! She’s had more than 138 NYT Bestsellers and has spent 102 weeks at the number one spot. Her current release is the latest entry in the Eve Dallas futuristic police procedure series, Innocent in Death. The next release is her single title contemporary romantic suspense: High Noon coming out in July.
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The details of the day I got The Call remain very clear. It was June, 1980. Hot and muggy. I was in the kitchen, which also served as my office in those days. Harvest gold appliances, a peel and press vinyl tile floor …