I began writing 'Matterhorn' in 1975 and for more than 30 years I kept working on my novel in my spare time, unable to get an agent or publisher to even read the manuscript.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I never actually sought out an agent or a publishing house. A friend of mine named David Simmer got wind of what I was doing, and he sent one of my books to a literary lawyer in Los Angeles. He loved it, and he sent it to other people, including an agent, and he picked me up, and that's how 'Bird Box' got to where it is now.
I was a book editor for nine years. I'm familiar with the opposite experience, bracing myself for the likelihood that no one would want to publish my book.
I lived through a classic publishing story. My editor was fired a month before the book came out. The editor who took it over already had a full plate. It was never advertised. We didn't get reviewed in any major outlets.
I wrote a novel for my degree, and I'm very happy I didn't submit that to a publisher. I sympathize with my professors who had to read it.
My first novel was turned down by about twenty publishers over a period of two and a half years. Because my name is Irish and would not be familiar to English editors, one of them said: 'If she writes anything else, do let us know.' Slowly, very slowly, the books began to sell and be noticed.
Nobody told me how hard it was going to be to get published. I wrote four novels that nobody wanted, sent them out all over, collected hundreds and hundreds of rejection slips.
I publish my own books, so there isn't a certain editor I owe the book to at a publishing house.
My first novel took almost six years to sell and was rejected 37 times in the interim, and then finally sold for the smallest amount of money my literary agent had ever negotiated for a work of fiction.
I didn't have to struggle at all to get an agent and a publisher. Everything fell into my lap.
You have to remember that in addition to running a literary agency, I am also an ebook publisher.