Describe your road to publication. (Did you query agents?  Submit directly to publishers?  Did you write and publish short fiction before writing and marketing a novel?  Did you self-publish first?)

Benjamin Wallace

I never tried to query or submit. I went straight to self publishing and love it. I like that the work I put in is what I get out of it.

Vicky Dreiling

It’s a wild story. I was in the airport waiting for a flight to London when a friend who had read my manuscript emailed me. She’d told her agent about my book. The agent wanted me to query, so I wrote the query in the airport (I was in marketing so that made it a lot easier for me.). When I got to my hotel in London, I found a request for the full. She is a great agent, but she didn’t like the high concept. I believed in it too much to change it, so I turned her down. It was a gutsy thing to do, because I had no way of knowing if I’d ever get another offer. As it turned out, three agents offered to represent me. By the way, I met my agent because I was late to a dinner and there was only one seat left ““ next to Lucienne Diver. It was fate. J By the way, the book that the first agent wanted me to change went on to receive two RITA nominations.

Tanya Anne Crosby

My first writing endeavors were personal poems I shared with no one. They were just too personal, and in fact it was probably my version of therapy. But it was very early on that I decided I wanted to write books/stories for a living. Pulling my oldest-child weight, I forced my brothers and sister to listen to made-up stories while I babysat them. Luckily, they didn’t seem to mind it so much! Once I was an adult, with a manuscript completed, I had so little faith, but so much desire, and I purchased 100 manuscript boxes and stacked them in a corner of my office, fully prepared to use every one. I didn’t have to as it turned out. I queried 10 agents, and ended up going with the first one who wrote me back expressing a desire to represent me (in retrospect, not really the best way to do it, but it worked). We submitted my first book, Angel of Fire to Avon Books, and the rest is history, I guess.

Donnell Ann Bell

My road to publication was an invaluable learning experience. I worked first for newspapers and magazines, and became hooked on the written word, breaking news and the “what ifs that encompass story. When I started writing fiction, I entered contests to see if I was close and placed in numerous contests with various manuscripts.  In 2005, my unpublished novel, WALK AWAY JOE, which in its published format changed to THE PAST CAME HUNTING, advised me that readers were connecting with my story and my voice.  That novel won first in The Sandy, took second in Heart of the Rockies, where another manuscript of mine took first, and finaled in the 2007 Golden Heart ““ Romance Writers of America’s most prestigious competition. Numerous agents requested that manuscript and I accepted my first agent representation from that novel with one of the most respected literary agents in the business. In 2010, DEADLY RECALL was my second Golden Heart final.  My agent and I parted ways, and that year I sold to BELL BRIDGE BOOKS, owned and operated by gurus of the publishing industry, Debra Dixon and Deborah Smith.

Morgan Hannah MacDonald

I queried agents and publishers for 12 years before turning to self-publishing and I’m really glad I did.

Suzan Tisdale

None of these. I never queried an agent, never submitted any written work to publishing houses or anything. I self-published my first book as a gift for my mom.

Laurin Wittig

I started writing literary short stories and even submitted a couple of them to places like Redbook magazine, then quickly realized that wasn’t where my heart was. I discovered Washington Romance Writers (WRW) in1992, joined immediately and took every craft and business workshop I could get to. I met my agent at the annual WRW Retreat sometime around 1996 or 97, though she didn’t become my agent until 2001, so I never queried agents. I also never queried publishers. I entered contests. In 1999 and 2000 I finaled in the Golden Heart contest for unpublished manuscripts (short contemporary both times). In 2001 I won the Emily and the Marlene with my first Scottish historical manuscript. Gail Fortune, then Senior Editor at Berkley Publishing, judged the final round of the Marlene and asked for the complete manuscript. 5 months later Berkley/Jove made an offer on that book, The Devil of Kilmartin, for their new Highland Fling line. It was publishing in 2002, then the line folded and I was moved to the Sensation single title imprint for two more books. At which point my option wasn’t picked up and, though I didn’t know it at the time, my traditional publishing career came to a halt.

Catherine Bybee

I started on the path of agents and big publishers”¦ However, none of that panned out very quickly and I moved on to a small press. I published my full-length time travels and several short novellas, both erotic and werewolf in small houses. When I decided to branch out into contemporary romance, I decided to go it alone. I self-published Wife by Wednesday, which went viral and made all the lists, aka, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and NYT‘s Bestsellers list.

Kat Martin

After I decided I wanted to be a writer, I started taking classes from published authors, six month in L.A, going down once a week, another six months in Fresno, CA, going up there once a week.  Once the book was done, I went after an agent, met one who was interested at a writer’s conference.  She read the manuscript and took me on as a client.  She also took my husband, who had written his first book, as a client.  It was a full-length western romance.   After it was in print, we made calls on local distributors, which you can’t do now.  We attended as many conferences as we could manage and signed books at hundreds of different locations.    Then the company dropped the line and I had to start all over again!