The story of my very first sale is the fact that I dreamed up a foolproof paper to cheat an insurance company out of several hundred thousand dollars.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I think my first story sold for $550. This was in 1954, and it seemed like quite a lot of money, and I said to myself, 'Hey, I'm a professional writer now.'
I think I made my first short fiction sale in 2005. I had been writing unsuccessfully before that.
By 2003, every fool was getting into real estate. The checkout girl at my local supermarket handed me her newly printed real estate agent business card.
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.
My second business would have succeeded but for competitors' jealousy. I was selling motorbike gear cheap, but the people I was undercutting complained to the manufacturer and cut off my supply. It showed me how corrupt business can be. When I sold phones, the same thing happened, but this time I was ready.
When I sold my first book, 'A Conspiracy of Tall Men,' it was part of a two-book deal. It wasn't hugely lucrative, but it was enough money for me to quit the paralegal job I had in San Francisco.
I became a millionaire overnight by signing a piece of paper. I made more money in that one second than my entire family did in their lifetime.
I'd sold the book first. Actually to a paperback publisher. I had nothing. I just had the idea.
I sell my first book to Random House, a memoir of my years as a war photographer, for twice my NBC salary.
Show business is my life. When I was a kid I sold insurance, but nobody laughed.