Selling Your Book
THE BIG IDEA You’ve got it, have you? You’ve got that story idea that you’re sure WILL SELL. The story you want to tell trumps everything else that’s out there. You have a divine certainty that it’ll be a BESTSELLER. You’re so sure, you just wish people could experience the certainty you do. You’ll show them. You’ll show them all. Your book is going to be THE BIGGEST HIT EVER. Right? Well, as somebody who’s written for over forty years, and worked in publishing for nearly twenty years, I have one question I need you to answer: WHY? Because the story rocks, you’ll tell me. And? IT IS JUST THAT…
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I have only the vaguest recollection of my first submission – a (long) short story to some magazine (I can’t remember which exactly) way back in the late 1980s. The story was an action story. I remember the story specifically. I still have it (and wrote two sequels, as well as a prequel before prequels were fashionable). One day, I’d like to do something with it although, in retrospect, it’s probably better suited to a screenplay. The magazine was one of those women’s periodicals, like Woman’s Day – although I don’t think it was that particular one. It was one that did publish short stories, though. I wouldn’t have just…