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DOES A NEW AUTHOR HAVE A CHANCE IN TODAY'S PUBLISHING WORLD

What is that thing that gives an author staying power when it comes to continuing to be published?.  I  have some authors that I follow just to learn or try to understand why they are no longer players in the literary world.

I have one particular author in mind as I'm writing this article.

The author I'm referring to had two urban fantasy novels published and was featured in two anthologies. I've not read her books, only her excerpts from the books. They were very good. From what I can tell...she's a really good story weaver.

She hasn't had anything published since 2011. From her Face book page that I follow, looks like she has pretty much given up on writing. She hasn't mentioned it in any of her posts nor has she updated her website.

I'm trying to figure out what happened to her and what looked like a promising career. Being a new author, I know that as a new author, the publisher is not going to invest that much money into promotion of your novels.

So, it's up to you to sell yourself. She seemed to have done that. She created a website, created a web presence and attended a few cons.

So, why didn't it work? Why didn't her books sell? She did all the right things it seems. She had an agent pushing her books? But the books didn't sell as much as projected and she and her books were dropped by the publisher and her agent wasn't able to sell to another publisher.

I'm hoping and praying this particular author hasn't given up.

I try to learn from successful authors as well as those not so successful as I plan my writing career. I don't want to land an agent, have my first novel published and not have my publisher pick up any more of my books or have my agent stop believing in me as a writer.


Later,
Melissa