I have a confession. Whenever my monthly Romance Writers Report arrives, I always turn to the same section first: the First Sales column. I want to live vicariously through whoever has been fortunate enough to grab her first sale in the romance biz. I want to see what houses are buying, what titles and genres are selling, and inevitably, I want to see how long these people have been struggling before getting their big break.
And that's where I run into a problem. Because I'm happy for all these fellow authors, really, I am. I just can't tell you how amazingly frustrated it makes me when Suzie Smith reports that she's been writing for 2 years, and this was the first manuscript she completed before selling. I mean, come on. Who actually sells their first manuscript, after writing for only 2 years?
Sigh...so let's look at this month's and see if there's room for hope for the rest of us under-achievers.
17 First Sales in this month's column. 8 of those to Triskelion Publishing. They've been buying a lot lately. Hmm.
Moving on...a bunch of 4th and 5th manuscripts sold, and...Hooray! Only one author who sold the first manuscript she ever wrote, and two who sold their second. Ooh, and here's one that's been writing for 13 years. Wow! I'm also loving the woman who sold her 11th complete manuscript, because first of all it takes some persistence to stick it out through that many stories, and second of all, she landed herself a 3-book deal with Avon. Way to go! See, it does pay off.
Okay, enough drooling over other people's success. Time to get back to the keyboard and chug along toward mine.
1 comment:
I do the same thing... I even posted about it once when I read about a lady who'd written seventeen books before being published!! Now that's persistance.
You'll get there. I've read your writing. It's good. Really good.
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