This blog was first posted on the Gems in the Attic blog, November 10, 2017.
I found an audio diskette from the 1996 Romance Writers of America (RWA) convention in Dallas, Texas. I was younger then. Eager. Unpublished. I remember rooming with a couple of ladies whom I met on the Internet. The Internet? eMail? OMG! The world was changing fast.
The diskette is entitled “In-Depth Look at the Contemporary Market.” I wonder what I’d hear if I played it again. But I won’t listen to it. Times have changed and big time. Two years after that convention, I sold my first book to Kensington. Then my second. Then when my agent didn’t work out, I contracted with a small publishing company that sold their books first as ebooks.
Today I publish my books myself—with the help of a techy husband, a fantastic editor who keeps me honest, and a variety of cover artists. I no longer have to worry about what some faceless editor will say after reading ONE page of my manuscript. No joke. I heard an editors’ presentation once where the two editors agreed in front of all of us wannabes that they “read to reject.”
We fooled them, didn’t we? We are our own captains of our ships now. We always had to do marketing and promotion. Now we publish our books, set our prices, make our own decisions.
Times have changed. For the better? I think so.
Reunited now Kentucky Flame
Watch for the revised, reedited, and rebranded relaunch of my first book Reunited. Now called Kentucky Flame, it is part of The Bluegrass Reunion series.