Guest Blog for Shewrites.com
Countdown to Publication: #16 Days
About 100 years ago, or more accurately in1996, when we were in pre-pub for Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made, which was technically our second book, but the first under our own names, we decided to include a letter to the readers in the back. It was our way of extending what we’ve always viewed as a communication between writer and readers. We wanted to assure that if someone was actually motivated to write back, they had a way to reach us directly. This was a lesson we learned after our first book, Exposures, (written as Marie Joyce, both of our middle names) came out. About nine months after publication we received a large envelope from our publisher. It contained several letters that had been sent to us, in care of them, by readers. Clearly they had been moved around somebody’s desk until, in a fit of organization, this somebody stuck them in an envelope, actually looked up our address and sent them to the mailroom. No matter how purloined our “fanmail” had been we were grateful to receive it and because our mothers had taught us well, we wrote responses to each one. But we also decided that in the future, if indeed we had a publishing future, we wanted a direct line of communication with our readers.
So we headed to the post office and rented ourselves a PO Box. And we got our first email address—back when Prodigy and Comp-u-serve were still prominent. We opted for the upstart AOL. Our editor was mystified. “Why are you including an email address?” To read the rest of this post, please visit:
Labels: novelists, women's fiction, writer, writing
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