Never give up

My first bit of advice to any writer is to never give up. The second bit is to always write to please yourself. No matter what you are writing, be it poetry or a novel, your first duty is to make sure it pleases you. After that if someone else enjoys your work it is just a added bonus.

The never give up part is the hardest, after hundreds of rejections from Agents, it make the one that likes you work all the sweeter. It is so easy to get discouraged when you receive turn down letters from agents and publishers. But if you turn that around and use it to motivate you to write more and better, sooner or later you dream will come true.

I do want to warn you not to fall into the same trap that I did the first time. My vanity took control over my good sense and I let someone publish my first book who markets not to the general reading public but to the authors themselves. They grossly overprice the book and then try discounting it to the authors.

They priced my first novel at 24.95 and published it in a paperback form. Now it is next to impossible to sell a unknown author's novel at that price when you can buy a well known authors paperback for as little as 8.95.

Then they keep emailing me trying to sell me copies at a 50% discount ---to which my cost for my own novel is still more than the retail cost of a well known author's book.

so be careful ---research the publishers---the best route is to find an agent to submit your work to a major publisher. Be wary of Agents that charge reader fees ---good agents only make money by selling your work for you---they get a percentage of your sales---so their making the best deal possible is in their own interest as well as yours.

My first novel is available on Barnes and Noble dot come or Amazon dot com the ISBN number is 1-60610-111-0---the title is Mysterious Lady

It is a great Action/ Adventure novel with just the right touch of romance.

Have fun and keep on writing!