A few days ago, Sea of Secrets reached its 1,000th sale. It’s been almost exactly six months since I published it, and it’s been an amazing ride–and one that’s far from over. Sea of Secrets originated as a manuscript I wrote when I was in grad school; at that time I called it Still Waters, as in “still waters run deep,” a reference I later realized was ambiguous. After making the usual rounds of editors and agents in the late nineties, it went into a drawer, until a motivating talk at a December 2011 meeting of the Georgia Romance Writers galvanized me to put it out in the world.
I marvel at how much the world has changed with the advent of e‑publishing and the ability to circumvent the gatekeepers that turned my book away because–and this was quite a legitimate reason for rejecting it–it belonged to a genre that was no longer trendy. Traditional publishing houses do have to keep an eye on the bottom line, like all businesses, and I had written what I loved, not what was then selling. So I can say without exaggeration that it’s been the consummation of a long-held ambition to publish this book and see people buying it and reading it. And even, which is more gratifying than I can express, enjoying it.
My apologies for being sentimental; landmarks sometimes do that to me! But if you’ve been one of the many generous and supportive people who’ve helped Sea of Secrets reach 1,000 sales, please know that I’m truly thankful.
For the past year and a half I’ve been working hard on new fiction, a young adult paranormal romance trilogy that I’m determined to self-publish before the year is out. It’s been such a different experience from writing Sea of Secrets. That manuscript I wrote in a vacuum, whereas my works in progress benefit from the scrutiny and input of a wonderful team of beta readers and friends, who are helping me to make these stories as good as I can possibly make them–or at least as good as they can get until I become too impatient to keep revising further; my perfectionism and my impatience are eternally locked in a clash of titans. 🙂
I hope, and I believe, that when I do release my new works, they’ll have a head start in the world because of the wonderful readers and reviewers who have embraced Sea of Secrets. Thank you all for a glorious six months, and here’s to many, many more to come!
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