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Archive for 'first-sale'



My First Sale by James Hayman, Call It Beginners Luck

James HaymanWelcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Like the hero of The Cutting, James Hayman is a transplanted New Yorker. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Manhattan, he spent more than twenty years writing TV advertising for clients like The U.S. Army, Lincoln-Mercury and Procter & Gamble. He moved to Portland, Maine in 2001. Four years later he decided to scratch a lifelong itch to write fiction and began work on his first suspense thriller featuring homicide detective Mike McCabe. St. Martin’s/Minotaur bought rights to The Cutting and published it in July, 2009. Hayman is currently at work on the second McCabe novel which is due to be published in July, 2010. The tentative title is The Chill of Night.
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I took my first crack at writing a novel at an age when my most of my contemporaries were figuring out their Social Security benefits and considering the merits of taking up golf full time.

Not to put too fine point in it, I was more than a little gray. …

My First Sale by Sabrina Darby

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Sabrina Darby introduces her own brand of erotic romance with her single author collection, On These Silken Sheets (link to excerpt), available in stores now.
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0061780286.01.LZZZZZZZI remember getting The Call really well because I was sitting with my dad in front of my computer, watching CNN.com as John McCain introduced Sarah Palin as his running mate. I hadn’t thought too much about where or when it would happen––if it would happen––but I never would have imagined my father being the first person to know simply from the way I said hello on the phone. It was August of 2008 and it had been three months since I’d emailed the complete version of my book to Avon Red.

And I say complete, because they had already seen two of the novellas of the single author anthology I had submitted.

In January of ‘08, I had the idea for a short erotic story, which started with this one vivid interlude. From those …

My First Sale by Terri DuLong

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Terri DuLong’s first book, Spinning Forward, is in stores on Tuesday.
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0758232047.01.LZZZZZZZThe older I get, the more I realize that I’ve always been a late bloomer. At age 25 I was divorced, a single mom with three children—and not much of an education. So I joined the ranks of college kids much younger than I and ended up earning a degree in secretarial science. I remarried, worked as a legal secretary and at age 34 discovered I would bloom once again—graduating from college a few years later as a Registered Nurse.

During all of these years, I wrote. No, I didn’t write for publication. I wrote because I had to write. I had been writing all of my life—volumes of pages to pen pals around the world, diaries and journals. Writing was my passion but never once did I consider that it could also be a career.

Like my mother, I’ve always been an avid reader, and it was my …

My First Sale by Gary Morgenstein, Better Late Than Early

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Gary Morgenstein is a novelist/playwright who sold his first book, Take Me Out to the Ballgame, at the age of 26 to St. Martin’s Press.  With the rights reverted, Morgenstein took the opportunity to rewrite it and re-release it on Amazon.com.
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Orson Welles once said, “Better late than early.†I wonder if that’s true with a writer. I sold my first novel when I was only 26, a wunderkind. I’d written a few books before, getting nowhere. Then I lucked out, landed an agent who sold Take Me Out to the Ballgame, a novel about baseball fan violence, to St. Martin’s Press. (A novel which I have recently completely re-written, modernized to reflect America circa 2009, and republished at Amazon.com)

But I had no idea what publishing meant. I didn’t understand marketing or promotion. I didn’t understand the publishing business. Or any business really – at the time I worked as a writer for professional wrestling magazines. The corporate world was a …

My First Sale by Therese Walsh

official book picture - jpgWelcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between.  This week, we are graced by three author letters.  This last comes from Therese Walsh.  Her debut release, The Last Will of Moira Leahy, is in stores beginning October 13, 2009.  Janine will be posting a review of this book shortly and it is one of Dear Author’s October recommended reads.
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In July of 2008, my agent sold my debut novel, The Last Will of Moira Leahy, in a two-book deal to Random House. That’s the happy ending. But, as readers, you know that every happy ending is preceded by a testing journey and dark moment, when all seems lost. I’d love to tell you about mine.

In 2002, after years of writing children’s book manuscripts, I decided to try my hand at adult fiction: a romance. I imagined a heroine—a romance languages professor (Maeve)—and a hero—an antiques dealer with an English accent (Noel). I decided to begin the story at an auction house, where my characters …

My First Sale by Jessa Slade

JessaSladeWelcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. This week, however, we are posting a number of First Sale letters.  Because I don’t know how to run my own calendar.  But these are great stories, no?  Today’s story is from Jessa Slade. Seduced by Shadows is her first urban fantasy.
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Sometimes I think I took the world’s most boring route to getting The Call. No late night runs across the border. No emergency tracheotomies. No trumpet fanfare.

Instead, it was like a Ken Burns epic: Slow pans across the scene, endless talking heads, a pretty picture, and then a few more slow pans for good measure. Maybe some bagpipes. I’m not complaining, mind you, just sorely tempted to rewrite with more Bruckheimer-style, multi-stage explosions.

Almost a hundred rejections over more than ten years on nearly a million final draft words. The math isn’t exact; I’m rounding to the nearest heartache. On the plus side, my plodding journey did hit most of the cliché mileposts on the …

My First Sale by Kate Pearce

katepearce09Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Today we have Kate Pearce, the author of the historical erotic romance series ‘Simply’ from Kensington. The fourth in the series, Simply Wicked, is out in stores now.  She also writes for NAL, Ellora’s Cave, and Cleis Press.
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I hate to start with back story, but I was of those kids who made stuff up all the time, so much so that I had a ‘slight problem’ distinguishing imagination from reality, a skill that wasn’t much appreciated throughout my childhood. By the time I moved to California from London in 1998, I’d forgotten about making stuff up, being far too busy bringing up four kids, remembering to drive on the wrong side of the road and hoping everyone had a nice day.

And then, I visited my local bookstore and discovered the ROMANCE section. It was huge! I immediately started reading my way through every single author I could find, and I realized that I had found my people. As I couldn’t …

My First Sale by Kylie Brant

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Kylie Brant has a trilogy of Romantic Suspense books out from Berkley. The first release, Waking Nightmare, was out in September. Waking Evil, the next in the series, will be on the shelves next Tuesday.
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cover_092009Usually 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 …

My First Sale by Kat Martin

KMthree-qtrs300medWelcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Today we are featuring two first sale letters. The first is by New York Times Bestselling Author, Kat Martin, whose latest romance, The Christmas Clock, features two people who really need a second chance.
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I never wanted to be a writer. Or at least I never knew I did until I sort of stumbled into it. But I always had stories rolling around in my head and when my husband started writing a Western novel, I thought…hummm…maybe I could do that.

I had characters and a plot in mind right away, a western romance because I loved reading them, and coming from a western background (my great grandmother came out in a covered wagon), I was comfortable in that time frame.

But how to actually write?

I needed to learn the basics so I went to the first writers’ conference I could find, which happened to be in Santa Barbara, California, and turned out to be one of the best in the country. I went …

My First Sale by Lori Brighton & Giveaway

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Today we are featuring two first sale letters. Lori Brighton is a debut author with her first historical, Wild Heart, due out in November. Don’t forget to read the bottom of the first sale story to learn how to win one of 3 $10 gift certificates.
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When is it time to give up on a dream? After a year? Three years? Six? I’ve often pondered that question on my road to publication.

I wasn’t one of those writers who was reading at three and journaling at five. Honestly, English class and all the grammar rules that came with bored me to tears. But I did read a lot, and my imagination was insatiable. To escape those angst-ridden teenage years, I’d make up stories. By the time I was an adult, I had so many tales clambering around in my head that for my own peace of mind I decided to put one to paper.

I didn’t start writing until about seven years ago. I’d heard those Cinderella …

My First Sale by Claudia Dain

claudia_bioWelcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Claudia Dain writes romance stories about the woman getting everything she wants. Her latest book, To Dazzle a Duke, is in stores now with her mass market reprint The Courtesan’s Secret to be released in October. In case you missed it, Ned and I put together a little lego video of her book, The Courtesan’s Daughter.
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It wasn’t easy, let me just say that right off. I’d written two books before I even sent the first book to a publisher. When my manuscript pages came back, untouched by human hands (I’d be willing to swear to this in court), I figured out that I should probably get an agent.

That took forever. I was writing my fourth book when I got an agent. She loved my third book and sent it around to the publishers. Months passed, a year or two passed (I’ve blurred this period in my memory), and while she was waiting to hear back about book three, she read …

My First Sale by Tracy Wolff, Why I Took a Flying Leap

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Tracy Wolff, author of both Harlequin Superromances and erotic romances from NAL Heat, serves up her story today. Her latest release, Tie Me Down, is in stores now.
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Tracy-blueSmI’ve wanted to be a writer forever—seriously, from the time I put pen to paper and understood that I could use letters to make words, I’ve been crafting stories and characters in my head. I went to school and trained to be a writer (I have a bunch of degrees in English and am now a college writing professor) and always knew—with the arrogance of youth– that one day I was going to write a book that got published.

Of course, real life got in the way—grad school, marriage, a job, babies—you get the idea. Well, there came a time when, despite this, I knew that if I didn’t start writing soon, I was just going to let my dream wither and die. I wasn’t willing to do that. …

My First Sale by Louisa Edwards, The Book of My Heart (and other clichés)

louisa2Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Louisa Edwards’ debut book, Can’t Stand the Heat, is on shelves tomorrow. (It’s probably in the stores in right now, but it’s official release date is tomorrow. Go forth read, buy & get the urge to cook or eat). You can read an excerpt here. Comment to win a copy of the book & a Can’t Stand the Heat apron.

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Back when I worked in editorial at a major publishing house, all the assistants used to get together and discuss the elements of a surefire bestseller. For instance, I thought a vampire Navy SEAL romance couldn’t help but do well. Two hot trends for the price of one! It was a joke at the time, but when I got married and moved to Ohio, leaving the world of publishing behind, the idea stuck with me. I laboriously wrote, rewrote, and polished a paranormal romance that, while not purely vamps and SEALs, definitely had its roots in that joke.

The manuscript got me my wonderful …

My First Sale by Jeane Westin, Love and Glory…more than a book title

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between.  Jeane Westin began her writing life as a freelance journalist, then wrote a number  nonfiction books and finally came to her first and true love, historical novels.  She has a great website up (www.jeanewestin.com) where she updates regularly the “Fun Facts” section about life in England in the 1600’s.
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virginsdaughters
After a career as a journalist writing articles for magazines and newspapers and several non-fiction books, I decided to leap off a literary cliff and write a novel.  My agent at the time wasn’t thrilled.  She’d had other clients infected with “novelitis†(her word) and she’d lost sure non-fiction sales.  Still, I had to follow my muse and she recognized I wanted a new challenge.
In the mid 1980s, multi-viewpoint women’s novels were popular and I had a great idea for one…Love and Glory, about four of the first women to enlist in the military during WWII.  As a very young woman, I had joined the army as a way to get to college on …

My First Sale by Randy Sue Coburn

Randy Sue CoburnWelcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Today we welcome Randy Sue Coburn, author of A Better View of Paradise, in stores now.

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My first novel, Remembering Jody, sold a little over ten years ago, and the peculiar path that book took to publication might resonate for others who have hit the wall and don’t know where to turn. Which was exactly how I felt when the agent representing Jody gave up after six rejections.

Damn! Not only had I been abandoned by someone whom I’d embraced as a collaborator in launching a high-flying literary career, my book was no longer a virgin; what other agent would take Jody on, tainted as it was by rejection? Never mind that this is a situation that happens all the time in publishing—I was too naïve to know.

I’d been working on this book for years, and since it was more than a little autobiographical, about growing up Jewish in the South and a long friendship imperiled by mental illness, I took …

My First Sale by Kit Donner

It's hard to type.Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Kit Donner’s debut, Notorious Bridegroom, is in stores now.  You can visit Kit at her website: http://www.kitdonner.com/
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Unlike many writers, I haven’t spent my life thinking about writing and getting published.  That dream seemed too unattainable, so why dream it?  However, like many writers, I had read lots of romances, and thought I could write something similar.  Some day.  Maybe.

Some day happened in 1991 when I had a germ of a story about spies during the Regency period.  Although I have a BA in English literature, I couldn’t have told you much about English history including the time of the Napoleonic Wars.  I did know that Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, thanks to ABBA.  Then I heard about Romance Writers of America and found a local chapter in Delaware.  My first chapter meeting I thought, this is where I belong, with other writers excited about writing and romance.

From 1991-1993, I wrote …

My First Sale by Barbara Bretton

Barbara BrettonWelcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between.  Barbara Bretton is the USA Today bestselling, award-winning author of more than 40 books. She currently has over ten million copies in print around the world. Her works have been translated into twelve languages in over twenty countries.  You can visit her on the web at www.barbarabretton.com and read more about her current release, Laced with Magic.
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Sometimes even I don’t believe the way my first sale happened but it was 1982 and my dreams were as big as my hair. There’s something to be said for blissful ignorance. Who cared that the odds were definitely against me? I’d just beaten cancer. At that moment in time even the impossible seemed within reach.

It didn’t matter that almost everyone in my life (except my husband and my parents) thought I was crazy because I knew I was going to become a published novelist one day. I can’t blame my friends and family for being skeptical. I was thirty-one years old …

My First Sale by Lynn Raye Harris

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Lynn Raye Harris‘ debut novel, Spanish Magnate, Red-Hot Revenge (Harlequin Presents) has an official release date of August 1, but look for it in stores now.
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I love First Sale stories.  During the dark, hard times when I slogged through muck and doubt and disbelief I could ever write a story someone would buy, First Sale stories were my hope (yes, the phrase is always capitalized in my mind).  When I wanted to quit, I’d stumble across someone’s First Sale story and the flame of perseverance would rekindle.  To be able to share my own First Sale here with you now is a great joy.

spanishmagnate
To begin properly, I have to say that I read my first romance when I was about twelve years old.  It was a Harlequin Presents, with a dashing alpha male (probably a sheikh) and a virginal heroine.  I was hooked.  I read HPs for several years, then dropped away …

My First Sale by Roslyn Hardy Holcomb

newroslynpictureWelcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between.

Roslyn Hardy Holcomb is the author of three books. Her most recent book, Pussycat Death Squad, is available from Loose-Id.
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My first sale story should probably be a primer called How Not to Get Published. My first book happened purely by accident. Back in 2002 I was on a message board with other romance readers complaining about interracial romances. I think I read my first one in 1999, and being in an interracial marriage, I really liked them. However, they were few and far between, and many of them were quite tentative when it came to the more erotic aspects. I had just finished one that had no sex at all, and I was beyond annoyed by it.

So, my friends challenged me to write a love scene of the type I’d like to see in a romance. I’ve always been a writer, primarily of technical and instructional copy, but I’d never written fiction in my life. I had a lot of experience reading romances, however, …

My First Sale by Mary Jo Putney, Before inertia took over in Maryland

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Mary Jo Putney is a historical author who has penned over twenty nine books since 1987.  Her latest, Loving a Lost Lord, is in stores now.
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My first sale, and I still don’t quite believe it

Just as Alcoholics Anonymous members have drunkologues that describe their descent into drinking and their recovery, writers have first sale stories.  Mine is—a little embarrassing.  Too easy.  Though the romance market was much more open in the mid-80s, it still sounds too easy.  But sometimes, the universe smiles, and it did for me then.

As a kid, I was an obsessive reader, the kind with thick glasses and a flashlight under the blanket to read books at night.  But I can’t say that I dreamed of someday becoming a writer.  I grew up in the farm country of Western New York, with 140 inches of snow every winter and lots of cows.  Becoming a writer was simply beyond my imagination.

But I did have a good imagination.  During boring classes, I composed sagas in my head, …

My First Sale by Nancy Thayer

Nancy ThayerWelcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between.

Nancy Thayer is the New York Times-bestselling author of The Hot Flash Club, The Hot Flash Club Strikes Again, Hot Flash Holidays, The Hot Flash Club Chills Out, and Moon Shell Beach. She is also the author of a new June release, Summer House. She is the mother of Samantha Wilde, whose debut novel, This Little Mommy Stayed Home, comes out on June 23. Nancy lives on Nantucket. You can visit her website at www.nancythayer.com.
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Your Life Is Not a Novel. Or Maybe It Is!
By Nancy Thayer
I wrote the first six chapters of my first published novel with a pencil on a six-by-nine notebook while I was in Helsinki, during the one hour my two small children napped behind their closed bedroom door in a Spartan fourth-floor concrete walkup.

I’m writing this on my Imac in my study with a half-moon window looking out over Nantucket harbor.

I’ve published nineteen novels, a few short stories, and two commissioned novellas. I’ve made my living writing novels.

Because …

My First Sale by Diana Rowland

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Diana Rowland’s debut book, Mark of the Demon, is in stores now. You can read more about the book, including an excerpt, at Diana’s website.
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Fifteen years ago (or thereabouts) I wrote a big, horking, 150,000-word fantasy novel. It was sweeping! It was epic! It was full of every possible fantasy stereotype! Upon finishing, without a care (or a clue), I eagerly bought a copy of Writers Digest to find a publisher to sell it to. But before I could send the first copy out, I had a stroke of luck! A good friend of mine had become engaged to a senior editor at a fairly prominent publishing house, and she agreed to take a look at my manuscript.  Several months later I received word that she’d liked it enough to pass it along to her superior. I waited in eager anticipation, certain that in a matter of days, or perhaps weeks, my brilliance would be recognized and I would soon be a Real Live …

My First Sale by Wendy Wax

Wendy WaxWelcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. In The Accidental Bestseller, Wendy explores the depth of women’s friendships and the emotional bonds that tie people to their families, their friends and their work.

The writing itself proved somewhat cathartic for Wendy, mostly because, like her protagonist, she at one time contended with the emotions and stress involved with switching publishers. She also ended up sharing other attributes with her character. Each lives in the Atlanta area, has written numerous novels, maintains strong friendships with other women novelists, is married, has two children, and enjoys spending time in the mountains of northern Georgia.
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I was one of those lucky people who sold the first book she wrote. This was, of course, the result of complete and total ignorance. If I had known how unlikely this was I might never have begun. And I have to tell you that what followed was neither fast nor painless!

I started writing that first manuscript while at home with a two-year-old and a newborn. I chalk …

My First Sale by Mandy Hubbard

MHubbard_authorphotoWelcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between.  Mandy Hubbard’s novel Prada & Prejudice is in stores now.
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In late 2005, I heard about a write-for-hire piece at a major publisher, so I sent them a proposal. They sent me a revision letter. I remember laughing out loud and actually dancing in my kitchen with my dog, like a revision request was the best thing since sliced bread, and it meant I was going to make it.

A month later, I was rejected.

Fast forward to 2007, when my agent was submitting a little book called PRADA & PREJUDICE. Much like my first ill-fated novel, rejections poured in.

After a half-dozen or so, I received a revision request from Lexa Hillyer at Razorbill. So, although I did not dance with my dog this time, I revised it.  She rejected it. Saddened, we moved on.

More rejections.

prada26prejudice1-200x300By the time we hit rejection 20, I was more than a bit disenchanted. It had been over a year of submissions and multiple …

My First Sale by Alyssa Day (and GIVEAWAY)

book review Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Alyssa Day’s latest release, Atlantis Unleashed, is in stores tomorrow (or quite possibly today).
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Thanks so much to Jane and the Ja(y)nes for inviting me to stop by!!

My first sale was actually my nonfiction book, E-Mail to the Front, the story of how military families cope with wartime deployment. Since my husband left this week for another 6-7 month deployment, that book is on my mind and I’m actually going to take Jane’s advice and reissue it as an e-book. I have the rights back, and this way I can only charge a dollar or two to cover costs, so that the thousands of military spouses who have read the book and asked me where to find one for their friends/families don’t have to spend money they don’t have to read it. [Here’s an interview I did about being a military wife, if you’re interested:]…

My First Sale by Jackie Barbosa

jackie barbosaWelcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Jackie Barbosa is one of those new crop of historical authors that are making the future of historical bright and shiny. Her first print collection, Beyond the Red Door, is officially out tomorrow but may be in stores for purchase right now.
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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 …

My First Sale by Stephanie Bond

s-bond-head-shot-600-dpiWelcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Stephanie Bond currently writes “sexy mysteries” for Mira Books and romantic comedies for Harlequin.
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Timestamp: mid-November 1995. I have the most pitiful “The Call” story.  I was traveling for my corporate job, and that particular trip was less than glamorous.  The company I worked for had just bought a small asphalt company in rural Florida and I was sent there to begin the process of getting all their paperwork computerized.  I was viewed as the enemy and was alone in this dinky little town in a deplorable hotel room.  I went back to my room around midnight one evening, ready to resign, and called back to Atlanta for voice messages.  My agent had left me a message on my home phone that Harlequin was buying my book Irresistible? for their upcoming Love & Laughter line! 
 
But I had no one with me to share the news!  No one I worked with knew I was writing.  It was too late to call my critique partners, my agent, or anyone in my …

My First Sale by Tate Hallaway

tate4Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Tate Hallway writes paranormal romance for Berkley. The latest Garnet Lacey story, Dead If I Do, is in stores now.
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Nothing in my life has ever been accomplished by going in a straight line. I started college thinking I’d be a political science major, and ended up with degrees in both English and history. When I was a kid, I dreamed of being a comic book artist or maybe lawyer (since I loved debate club so much). Now I write books.

My path to publication was equally crooked and full of left turns, false starts, and any number of surprises.

On-the-job boredom inspired me to start a novel. My first attempt, which has thankfully never been published, was a story about a twenty-something lesbian who is mistaken for a boy and entangled in a prophesy involving reuniting Northern Ireland and the Republic. There were a lot of difficult-to-market aspects to that book, not the least of which was the sympathetic IRA …

Copyright and Consumer Digital Rights, Part 2

Sunday Pop Quiz

How many books are currently in the public domain and available online?

  1. About 10,000
  2. About 50,000
  3. 100,000 +

Another easy one? The answer is C, at least according to Project Gutenberg, where you can access more than 100,000 books between PG and its various partners and affiliates. I don’t know about you, but I find that a mind-boggling number of free, digitally-available volumes. Especially since it feels like with the more recent copyright extensions that virtually nothing is passing into the public domain these days.

In my last installment of this informal series, I introduced the idea of balance in copyright law – more specifically balance between the rights of a creator and the rights of the public to intellectual property. I want to follow that up here with a very simplified discussion of how that balance has been struck by the US Supreme Court. While that may seem counterintuitive, since copyright law is Congressionally controlled, I am sticking to the Court decisions here because I think they’re a) easier to understand than …

My First Sale by Deidre Knight

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Deidre Knight is the author the Gods of Midnight series from Berkley (a paranormal romance series) and the fabulous contemporary Butterfly Tattoo.  I was intrigued by Knight’s story of publication because Butterfly Tattoo was released by small press publisher, Samhain, which specializes in digital publishing.  Butterfly Tattoo is the perfect example of how digital publishing can bring genre bending content to the readership, taking risks where print publishers cannot.
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It’s a thrill to be blogging here on Dear Author today. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Deidre Knight, author of the Gods of Midnight series (RED FIRE, RED KISS). Before writing about immortal Spartans, I penned books about star-crossed alien/human lovers with my PARALLEL series. Most recently, my first contemporary romance, BUTTERFLY TATTOO, released from Samhain two weeks ago.
I’m also founder of The Knight Agency which represents such powerhouse authors as Gena Showalter, Nalini Singh, Robin Owens, Pamela Britton, Marjorie M. Liu, and Shannon Butcher. The agency grew out of my love of books in general, …



    Welcome to Dear Author. If this is your first time, you may want to read the "About" section. We read and review romance books (with a smattering of other genre and non fiction books) from the readers' point of view. Please feel free to comment.