Sharon Maria Bidwell

The simple answer is that is what the publisher I chose produces, but it may entertain you to explain how this came about. I have to confess my ignorance. I stumbled across the ebook market by accident at a fortuitous moment. I’d been writing for awhile and was doing well enough with small press magazines, which was great for building up a “resume” of work but not as fulfilling creatively, and certainly not financially, as one would hope. I don’t write for payment but it’s nice to have your work receive recognition, and a publishing contract is part of that process, as are reviews, reader response, and even a pay cheque. Writing is work; why shouldn’t authors receive payment for their work?

I’d had over 40 small pieces published — poems, short stories, and articles — in both print and electronic formats. Seeing as some of my shorter works were in an electronic print you would think I knew about ebooks, but I didn’t. I was also feeling incredibly unsatisfied. “When” was I going to have a large credit out there? “When” was I going to write a novel (or rather at least finish one ready for submission)? Now I admit opportunity was part of the problem, but I was floundering equally in indecision. I always say I write as I read, meaning anything and everything, and I just couldn’t settle on a genre. There are ideas that I have that won’t fit my current market but now at least I have the experience so that I have more focus when it comes to making these kinds of decisions. At the time, I was trying to decide what market to aim for. There’s a simple and rather sad fact in the publishing world. You can write what you want and hope there’s a suitable market available, or you choose a market and write specifically for it.

I’d read a few novels by authors such as Angela Knight and Mary Janice Davidson. I came across a couple of print books by these authors published by a company called Loose-Id. I looked them up online and discovered that although they produce a few print titles their main production was electronic books for the erotic romance industry.

Erotic romance? Had I been reading erotic romance? As silly as it sounds to say that, when I pick up a book no matter what the genre, I just consider it reading. I also just thought of them as paranormal stories with a romantic element. As for the erotic part, as I’ve discovered many authors just refer to these books as modern romances and they have a point. Sex is part of a relationship and what emotionally happens to a character during an intimate moment can have a great impact on the story and the reader. What I hadn’t considered at the time, and what would probably have helped me write a good novel, was the concept, that for an erotic romance to work, the sex has to be integrated and progressive to the story. Still, I was on a learning curve, and I noticed that authors such as the two writers I have mentioned above were doing well. I stared at Loose-Id’s author page and suddenly experienced this overwhelming desire to see my name listed amongst them. Oddly enough, I’d been reading a rather inspirational piece about making your own luck and “making” things happen. I decided I was going to do just that. I was going to write for Loose-Id.

Great idea but how to go about it? Well, I started reading their books and tried to dream up a suitable plot. In truth, I’d written few erotic pieces and they consisted of rather short poems, and flash fiction. And I don’t mean “flash” as in the dirty raincoat brigade but as in extremely short in verbiage. I had an idea, wrote it up, sent it in…and they rejected it. There, I admit it. I thought I’d bombed big time, but I hadn’t. Looking back on that work I can see that it reads like a first draft. It’s there waiting for me to fine tune using the experience I now have. Back then, I grumbled, then read their reasons, two of which I agreed with and one I didn’t. That’s neither here nor there. I learned a lot from that rejection letter and thank them for writing an educational refusal. I felt bad for a couple of days and then bounced back as writers so often do. Besides, what did I expect? This was my first serious attempt at submitting a novel and it was my first erotic piece of work and my first romance. What would be the chance of striking gold first time out? Pretty rare I’d say, so the trick was to do what writers do everywhere and persevere…

Check back for Part Two another day.