Comments on: Weekly Topic–How did you make your first sale?

By: Anna

Anna — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:16:26 +0000

I sold my fifth ms., but I think it was because I finally found the place where my stories belonged. I’d tried some short contemporary and then some long, and my stuff got bogged down at one house. I sent the ms. to Harlequin Superromance, and about 13 months later got a revision request. (From this point, I got a little crazy–I waited to do the revisions for about a year. You probably shouldn’t do that.) The revisions waited for another year–I should have called and I might have discovered that the editor who’d requested them had left the company. About a week after I called to ask about status, I got “the call.”

At the same time I was talking to Paula Eykelhof about my first sale, my daughter came home from school and she grew a bit annoyed that I hadn’t met her at the door as usual. I kept waving her off because she could be a touch shrill when annoyed. Finally, she departed the room, but returned with a complaining note in a few moments. She hurled her written advice that I should not be on the phone when my daughter returned from school and then sashayed off to her room while I tried to sound somewhat sensible (lost cause) and not to laugh at my girl’s out of character almost-teen-tantrum.

After I got off the phone, the girl and I danced around the house in joy.

By: Tawny

Tawny — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 18:06:52 +0000

Oooh, first sale. I guess you’d say I made mine through a contest as well, although I’d been submitting to and receiving encouraging and helpful rejections from the same editor for a couple years. But when my ms won the Blaze contest, she asked for the full, then bought it within 3 weeks of getting it.

I signed with my agent the week after I sold, but we’d already been talking about my single titles, so that was in the works already.

By: Sierra Donovan

Sierra Donovan — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 02:55:09 +0000

I’m kinda boring. I sold the first book I finished, to the second publisher I submitted it to. I went through the usual channels: followed the submission guidelines, mailed in the manuscript — and then had the good fortune to hit the right editor’s desk at the right time.

Mind you, I did have a long background in writing — short stories (most of which were rejected), plus news and commercials for radio. And there was that super-sucky first novel I never finished. I think all experience contributes to getting us where we are.

I sold without an agent. At first I wasn’t interested in finding one, because I was told that category contracts were very standard, and I didn’t want to give an agent 15 percent of money I could basically get on my own. Now that I’ve written a book that doesn’t fit any of the existing category lines, I’ve done a little agent searching. No bites yet. Need to gird my loins and get back to it!

By: Michele Ann Young

Michele Ann Young — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 02:41:44 +0000

I queried my agent, knowing he was just starting out. I thought that I would have more chance with a new agent because I was a new author.
Lots of people were wary about going with someone without a track record, but I didn’t have a track record either. I was thrilled when he asked for a full and when he loved it.
Regencies are a hard sell right now, but it is what I love to write and he is letting me do my thing. He sold my first book to Five Star, and I was so excited, I didn’t stop smiling for a week. but I didn’t realize just how scary a sale would be.
Since then I have sold a second book to Sourcebooks Inc and also have to produce an option book for them.
Michele

By: Lori Devoti

Lori Devoti — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 20:51:55 +0000

I sold through a conference pitch session–and without an agent too. My pitch BTW was horrible, but two weeks after I sent off the full, I got the call.
Lori