Deeanne Gist - www.deeannegist.com - Inspirational Romance Author

Thursday, August 04, 2005

I Need A Break

**Day 9 of "Journey to Publication"**

I dissolved my working relationship with my agent in 2001 when I started the manufacturing process for my chore system. I Did My Chores! hit the shelves in 2003. I licensed the product line in 2004. Yet, I still had 30K units in a warehouse in Kansas City that needed to be sold. And in the midst of all that selling, my creative side screamed, "I NEED A BREAK!"

During that time I had, for the first time, wandered over to the inspirational fiction aisle to see what it had to offer. And like most any aisle in the bookstore, some of the novels appealed to me, others did not. But it got me to thinking. "I wonder if I could rework Bride and make it suitable for the inspirational market?" That was in 2003.

So, for fun, I pulled it from the shelf. Dusted it off. And "cleaned it up." When I was all done, I realized I had a novel that was too tame for the general market and too steamy for the inspirational market. I basically had a novel that no one would want.

So, I shelved it and went back to peddling 30K units of I Did My Chores!

Tomorrow, how my manuscript went from the shelf on my bookcase to the shelf of a store near you.

posted by Deeanne at 12:11 PM

5 Comments:

Barb said...: So after all of this, all those years, all the effort at building your craft, the rewriting for the inspirational market, the trying to find a publishing house, etc etc....your husband still never read Bride until it was published in its current form???
Deeanne said...: That's a Big 10-4!!!

Ya gotta love him, eh?
Barb said...: I guess it's possible that that could happen around here, tho husband often asks me what's going on in whatever random book I'm reading. (Last time I had to say, "Well, her first husband died, but she just found a nicer, cuter one!") Did Mr Greg ever talk Bride story details with you? Or did he avoid the whole thing like the plague?
Deeanne said...: He avoided the whole thing like the plague. Wanted nothing to do with it. Bless his black little heart. :-)

The amazing news is, he read Bride after publication and was blown away by it. Proudest day of my life, it was.
Barb said...: Very cool! He realized his gem of a wife was even more rare and sparkly than he knew!