Authors Talk with OnceWritten.com About Their Early Publishing Experiences

OnceWritten.com speaks with traditionally published authors and ask them to share their experience in getting their first book published. Authors listed on this page are ones who have chosen to take a traditional publishing route and rather than being self-publishing, they have first-hand experience in the trials of finding an agent, finding a publisher, working with a large or small press, and signing a publishing contract.

Joseph Wambaugh

Joseph Wambaugh, an ex-cop turned #1 New York Times bestselling writer, forged a new kind of literature with his early police procedurals. When asked about two novels that marked the beginning of his legendary career—THE NEW CENTURIONS and THE BLUE KNIGHT—he responded:

My early experiences as an aspiring (closet) writer were not very remarkable. I sent short stories about my police experiences to many mass periodicals, even to . . .

Joseph Wambaugh on Getting Published

Tara Yellen

I wrote AFTER HOURS AT THE ALMOST HOME in three days—and spent the next eight years revising it.

The novel began as my Masters thesis for the writing program at the University of Colorado—though it wasn’t my original thesis. Two months before the due date, I was working on a collection of short stories. I was also working at two bars—one an upscale martini bar, where I lied to get the job because, despite years of waiting tables, I . . .

Tara Yellen on Getting Published

Keri Arthur

My journey to publication is one of persistence. DANCING WITH THE DEVIL was the fourth book I’d written, but the first book I actually believed might have had a chance of being published. Unfortunately for me, none of the publishers I submitted to liked it. It was a paranormal romance, and written at a time when paranormal romance wasn’t the ‘it’ genre. Getting a publisher to take a chance on such a story when the author was an unknown was . . .

Keri Arthur on Getting Published

Melissa Walker

The summer before I started high school, I filled a loose-leaf notebook with the tale of an overweight girl who wanted to find a prom date, so I guess you could say I always had some book dreams.

As soon as I started peeking behind the scenes of modeling and fashion as a magazine editor, I knew that I wanted to put a "real girl" in the middle of this crazy world, a girl who would see it from the outside and be like, "Holy crap!" It’s . . .

Melissa Walker on Getting Published

Jenny Gardiner

The funny thing about SLEEPING WITH WARD CLEAVER is that it came about when the title came to me. I didn't have the story, but the title came into my head and it felt "catchy". So that meant I had to brainstorm an actual book. No problem, right?

The little thing was I didn't write fiction. Not one bit. I was trained as a journalist, and really the only writing I'd ever done was of the journalistic bent. I was, actually, very stuck on . . .

Jenny Gardiner on Getting Published

Aimee Liu

My first book deal might be described as an intentional accident.

The year was 1977. All of 24, I was working as a flight attendant and aspiring writer without much writing to show for the aspiration. One day between flights I picked up a Vogue magazine and read a column about a little-known condition called anorexia nervosa. This was the first time I’d heard that phrase, but the list of symptoms told me that I’d suffered . . .

Aimee Liu on Getting Published

Sara Zarr

I finished my first novel in 1996; I was twenty-six years old and decided that I’d have a novel published by the time I turned thirty. So I followed all the usual steps everyone tells you to follow: querying agents, going to conferences, networking with other writers. I even got a good agent pretty quickly and figured the rest of the pieces would fall into place like clockwork. But nothing ever happened with that book. I wrote a second novel and . . .

Sara Zarr on Getting Published

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga

MIDORI BY MOONLIGHT is my debut book, but is actually the fifth novel I have tried to get published. When I took a job as a technical writer in Silicon Valley in the early 1990s, I found that many of my co-workers wrote fiction on the side. This inspired me to take a creative writing class at a community college where I began writing short stories about my experiences with Japanese culture. They were well received in my classes and after many . . .

Wendy Nelson Tokunaga on Getting Published

Warren Adler

I was over forty and still burned with the hope that I would realize my dream of becoming a career novelist. At the time, I owned an advertising agency in Washington D.C., which I had founded to support my growing family. A man walked into my office who had written a non-fiction book THE MORAL SOCIETY. He asked what we would charge to promote his book. In a eureka moment, I said our fee would be if his publisher, a small one in Philadelphia, . . .

Warren Adler on Getting Published

Timothy Schaffert

I wrote lots of fiction… short stories, parts of novels, a few plays here and there. A few of those bits of fiction were published or won awards, and occasionally I’d get a well-meaning letter from an agent, or a friend of mine would get an agent, and so I’d send my completed novel out, and they’d send my novel back, always complimenting the book’s merit and potential, but lamenting their lack of passion for it (or, at least, “the kind of . . .

Timothy Schaffert on Getting Published

Jeff Rivera

I know this may sound corny but having my first book published by Warner/Grand Central proved to me that dreams really do come true. I mean that's what it did. All those nights of dreaming and long hours of writing, and wondering if it would really come true were worth it.

It was a long trail for me because I did it non-traditionally. I self-published the book at first using the only $200 I had a the time and promoted the book online. . . .

Jeff Rivera on Getting Published

Shobhan Bantwal

My first book, THE DOWRY BRIDE, started out as a rather dark short story—a homework assignment for the one and only creative writing course I took a few years ago.

When everyone in the class was asked to read a paragraph or two each week for critiquing, as our respective stories progressed, mine sounded rather strange. I was the only ethnic student in class (Indian-American) and THE DOWRY BRIDE was set in small-town India. I was . . .

Shobhan Bantwal on Getting Published

Lani Diane Rich

I wrote my first book, TIME OFF FOR GOOD BEHAVIOR, on a lark. After the birth of my second child, I’d left my day job and did consulting work part-time from home, and that left me with some extra time to write. I’ve been writing forever, but never dreamed I’d actually make a living at it – I mean, what were the chances? – so I joined an online writing group called Momwriters. There, I met a bunch of great girls, a few of which are still some of . . .

Lani Diane Rich on Getting Published

Megan Crane

I wrote my first book in graduate school. I think I needed to escape into something fun while writing my infinitely depressing dissertation. I'd been writing my whole life, but I knew that this finished book was different (mostly because it was finished!) I decided that I should send it out. I had no idea what this meant, but a friend encouraged me and I thought I should too, because why not?

I thought I would try to send it to this . . .

Megan Crane on Getting Published

Holly Shumas

I'd have to say that for me, the breakthrough was writing without expectations, instead of writing what I always thought I should. I'd done several semesters of an MFA program years before, and developed the tacit belief that I should be writing literary fiction. But when I did that--in what I thought was the "literary fiction" voice--it just came out heavyhanded and humorless. When I finally sat down to start Five Things I Can't Live . . .

Holly Shumas on Getting Published

Catherine Coulter

I wrote my first book while aboard the ark during those hot summer afternoons with elephants scrunching peanuts in my ears. A friend in New York where the ark happened to land told me about the primo editor of the primo imprint Signet (NAL), so I wrote her this dumb letter about a mystery set in Regency England -- in truth rather gothic in nature, but with a really cool earl as hero, and a first person heroine with curly red hair. Three days . . .

Catherine Coulter on Getting Published

Andrea Portes

After I'd finished the manuscript for HICK, I realized I had no idea what I was doing, in terms of finding an agent, finding a publisher and the whole monster, in general. So, I went to the library and researched their Writer's Market, went to the bookstore and read their literary magazines while sitting on the floor next to a red-and-yellow cat. I couldn't afford to buy any of these things, so I was, basically, doing the research on the . . .

Andrea Portes on Getting Published

Marta Acosta

I researched agents who were members of Association of Authors Representatives and might be interested in Happy Hour at Casa Dracula. I contacted several and about five asked for sample chapters. One agent, Julie Castiglia, saw the possibilities of my wacky novel and agreed to represent me. I had to rewrite and tighten up the novel before she sent it out to publishers. There was an agonizing wait, and then three . . .

Marta Acosta on Getting Published

Tim Newman

I sent out the first chapter of my novel Yesterday's Falcon to the agents who listed fiction and fantasy as an interest and was fortunate in getting back a number of positive replies. Bob Mecoy of Creative Book Services in New York was the first to read the entire manuscript and offered me a contract.

I happily signed on the dotted line. Actually, he later told me that the night he read the novel he was at a cabin in the . . .

Tim Newman on Getting Published

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