Maggie Dana

My daughter just told me she loved the book and promised me that she'd closed her eyes while reading the racy bits. My son's teenage daughter is taking the book on holiday with her. Good thing (for me and my ability to blush) she'll be 2000+ miles away when she reads it.

Hi Michelle and everyone: Thanks for the questions, and my apologies for being dormant for so long. Question 1: Some would say that e-books are the biggest change, and while it's significant, I think an even bigger change is the overwhelming number of people writing books these days. Back in the 1980s when I wrote my first children's book, hardly anyone (outside of a business) owned a typewriter. But now, almost 30 years on, practically everyone has a computer or access to one, and most of them have a story to tell. This, of course, translates into many more submissions to publishers. In fact, most of the large publishers (Random House, Penguin, St. Martin's, Bloomsbury, etc.) no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts. They only look at agented submissions, which means that agents have pretty much become the gatekeepers when it comes to fiction. Question 2: Having my own book design company hasn't helped me make any contacts because my clients only publish non-fiction: medical, self-help, business, and academic. That said, my experience in book production was a plus because I knew what to expect and understood the importance of deadlines.

Here's an article I wrote for this blog, here: http://www.thedebutanteball.com/?p=5526 ... about writing a sexy scene or two and then worrying that my kids will read it!

This icon just about sums it up! Though I have to admit that I'm hopeless at finding my own novel on the shelves, or even on a display table by itself. I'm too distracted by looking at others I want to read. My friends always found my book first, and the best one was, of course, in the Smith's at Heathrow. My friend Pat (who saw it first) said it was 'the icing on the cake.' And yes, send along the bill. It will be added to the rather large pile that accumulated while I was away.

Hi Tim: How lovely to see you here. This is a super site full of friendly people. I think you'll have a great time with them. Which shops did you see the book in? I know WH Smith's is carrying it, especially in their airport and station outlets, and many Waterstones have it, too. Maggie

You mean the hand I'm now using to spoon ice cream into my face with?

Hi Everyone: I'm back in the U.S., safe and sound, and missing England like mad. To say I've just had the trip of a lifetime is putting it mildly. It couldn't have been smoother, thanks to British Rail (don't laugh ... it's brilliant) and friends with cars who met me at stations and airports, gave me beds to sleep in, and drove me to signings and other events. Picking highlights from a trip literally studded with them is tough, but I'll give it my best shot. It began with Katie Fforde who was not only kind enough to blurb my novel, she also came all the way from Stroud to have lunch with me and a couple of my friends in London ... and then (sweet and generous woman that she is) she insisted on picking up the tab. From L to R: Pat Waye (a dear friend who provides me with a home-away-from-home); Elaine Simpson-Long who blogs as RandomJottings; me; Katie Fforde Then it was off to my launch party at Macmillan's head office and this is what was on display in the ground-floor foyer (I suspect my clever publicist, Sophie Portas, had something to do with it): After recording a PR video in their basement studio (here's a link if anyone has the patience and fortitude to sit through it) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxvgZUPG0Fk&feature=channel I was whisked upstairs to Macmillan's top floor conference room where my editor and his team had laid on wine and appetisers (followed by dinner at a local restaurant) for me and my friends. Here are some of us outside on the balcony. From L to R: my editor, Will Atkins; Pat Waye; me; author friends Mark Bastable, Sue Cook, and Len Tyler. The next day, June 5th, was my official publication date, so I popped into several bookshops in London to sign copies of my novel, including Hatchards on Piccadilly, only to find out that the table I'm using was also used by Oscar Wilde to sign his books. On June 6th, I was part of a panel discussion on writing and publishing at The Writer's Handbook Live event in Regent's Park. Here I am sharing a smile with my editor, Will Atkins, while Big Brother Beachcombing watches over us. I had no idea that whopping great image was up there till after our segment was over! After a couple of days catching up with family and old friends, it was off to Waterstones in Oxford for a signing with Eliza Graham and Sue Cook. Their latest novels, Restitution and Force of Nature have just come out in paperback. It's been many years since I visited Devon and Cornwall and it's just as beautiful as I remember. Driving across Dartmoor, dodging ponies and reveling in the rugged landscape, reminded me of all the things I love (and miss) about England. I signed copies of Beachcombing at bookshops in Ivybridge and Paignton, in Tavistock and Wadebridge, and spent the night at a B&B on the north coast of Cornwall where part of my story is set. The scenery is breathtaking and I gathered up as much tourist information as possible because I'd like to bring my family (all ten of them) over next year to enjoy it with me. It rained while I was in Truro, but that didn't dampen my spirits. After signing copies at Waterstones and W.H. Smith's (who've purchased a substantial number of copies for their station and airport shops), I was interviewed at Cornwall Today magazine for their August issue, followed by a live interview at BBC Radio Cornwall with presenter Martin Bailie who put me at ease right away. He was so charming and friendly it was like chatting over a cup of tea at the kitchen table. If anyone's interested, here's a link to the show; my bit starts about 25 minutes in: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p003ctrt/Martin_Bailie_17_06_2009/ My trip ended on yet another high note, this time at the W.H. Smith's at Heathrow where I found 6 copies of my novel, followed by another 8 copies at the W.H. Smith's on the other side of the security checkpoint. I signed them all, then the salesperson put 'signed copy' stickers on the front and reshelved them face out at eye-level! Needless to say, I hardly needed an airplane to get me back to the States.

Michelle, many thanks for the warm and generous review. I'm back in the U.S. having had the most memorable visit home anyone could hope for. Soon as my feet hit the ground again, I'll post the highlights of my trip on the Featured Author thread you kindly started for me a month ago and which I've not been able to get to, having been at the mercy of friend's PCs while in England. I'm a Mac user and totally witless when it comes to PC navigation.

Hi everyone: Just a quick post to say I'm packed and ready to leave on my trip. Will arrive at Heathrow on Tuesday morning, my first trip back home in almost 7 years. Once I figure out my friend's PC, I'll jump online and check in with the Forum. Maggie

I don't have one, but I did ponder, briefly, using my middle name and my mother's maiden name which would've produced this: Anne Honeywood But it looked like the sort of name you'd find embossed on a cover featuring heaving bosoms and bare-chested men with muscles and long flowing hair.

Thanks for starting this thread. I've been hunting for Bond books for younger readers and have happily ordered four of them. Am in the US, so don't always hear about UK-pub'd books. My Bond-crazy grandson will be happy to get these for his 12th birthday.

I already have two reviews and both, fortunately, are good (links are at http://www.maggiedana.com, click on link for 'reviews' and scroll to the bottom). I shall definitely read all of them and try very hard not to be too upset by the negative ones which I'm sure to get. I'm lucky in that I have several good friends who're authors and I've been able to learn from their experiences with reviews, the good and the bad. We all love the glowing reviews, and probably believe them as well (!!!!), which means we have to pay attention to the negative reviews as well because they will also hold nuggets of truth, even if we don't want to admit it! Will I get self-conscious? Will I begin to doubt my writing? Probably, but I've not had enough reviews yet to be able to say for sure. I promise to keep you all updated on this.

My signings are listed at http://www.maggiedana.com (click on the link for 'news & events'). There are 4 bookshop and 2 library events, plus a couple of writers' workshops and 2 informal (drop-in) signings. And I whole-heartedly agree about a gaping hole in women's fiction. I've been whingeing about this for years, and am glad to see it's slowly getting filled, but not nearly fast enough for my taste! Small note of interest here: If you want to be published by a major fiction house, you need an agent because publishers will only accept submissions from agented authors. Getting an agent is tough, and getting tougher. It's not like hiring a real estate or insurance agent where all you have to do is pick up the phone and ask. A literary agent has to be won over by brilliant writing and a manuscript he or she can't bear to put down. As for my own potholed path to publication ... it's been a convoluted, often frustrating, frequently infuriating, yet ultimately rewarding journey that began in the 1980s when I got my start by writing books for kids, 7 of which were published (it was a little easier to find a publisher in those far-off days). Then life got in the way. I started a typesetting business, steered my 3 kids through college, survived breast cancer, moved 1200 miles from my home in Connecticut down to Alabama for 2 years to help my son and his wife cope with a toddler and premature twins, returned home to pick up the threads of normal life again, and so on, and I didn't fire up my keyboard again till the summer of 1999, when a friend challenged me to write the sort of book I was always complaining there weren't enough of. In the 10 years since I began it, my novel has undergone more facelifts than the QE2, including (in no particular order) 2 agents, 3 title changes, and 4 major revisions that chopped its original 180,000 words in half. It has been scrapped and rewritten from the ground up in a different tense and POV, with a brand new plot and enough new characters to fill a phone book. It has been submitted by aforementioned agents to a dozen editors in New York and come close, but not close enough, with a couple of them, and it has lived in a box beneath my bed for months on end while I tried to pretend I didn’t care if it ever got published. Finally, just over a year ago, I decided to give it one more shot by submitting it myself to Macmillan New Writing in the UK, a new imprint at Macmillan that actually accepts manuscripts directly from authors. So I fired it off, then settled down to wait and, being a pragmatist, I prepared myself for yet another disappointment. So you can imagine my surprise when, two months later, I got the email all authors dream of: "We love your novel and would like to publish it." It arrived as I was about to drive north to my daughter's house to help celebrate her birthday. I replied to the email: YES, PLEASE!!!! and printed it out, then gave it to my daughter as an extra birthday present. We both danced around her kitchen, laughing and crying. Her kids thought we'd gone barmy. So, in answer to your question: How many publishing houses did you have to approach before someone agreed to publish it? the answer is, "I've pretty much lost track," but if you mean How many publishing houses did I personally submit it to? then the answer is 'only one,' but that was at the tail end of a very long path filled with many, many potholes.