E-mail of the day

A reader writes:

When is your next novel coming out? Also when is Carrie Pilby going to be made into a movie starring Ellen Page? The character of Carrie practically has Ellen's name written all over it. I love your first two novels and the short story in the christmas collection when are you gonna write me another one.
Your Fan,
[redacted]

Thanks, Fan! (And no, I didn't write this myself!)

This reminds me that it was five years ago this month that my first novel came out. It was a very hectic month because I knew I had to put in 20 hours a day trying to get publicity for the book while I had the chance. I had one month to really get it out there - and I couldn't waste any time.

I'd be up each night alone, lonely, on my computer until 3 a.m. trying to figure out how to get it out there.

I was very lucky for something: the timing of my book coming out was amazing. June was right at the beginning of summer, when people have time to read. Better yet, June of 2003 was a summer when chick-lit absolutely exploded. It had been percolating before, but there was suddenly so much of it that a lot of newspaper and magazine articles were devoted to the subject, not to mention special sections in book stores, including Barnes & Noble.

When those articles came out, a lot of them mentioned my book, since it was a bit different than the usual chick lit. This was great publicity. Plus, Red Dress Ink was still publishing only one book a month, and they printed more than 50,000 copies of mine. After that, they went to two books a month, then three. There became such a glut that eventually, chick-lit publishers had to scale down. But people are still reading women's fiction.

Thank you to everyone who read my books, especially those who still write and ask about them. I appreciate it! (And thanks to the Hub for marrying me even after seeing how weird my character was in my goofy first novel.)