Ladies and Gents, I am more than thrilled to introduce to you the series: How Writer's Made It Big.
Within these series, you can read the stories on how a few of America's favorite author's hit the best selling list like Stephen King, Nicholas Sparks, John Green, ect.
I look forward to sharing their stories with you, and the first story I'll be telling is the one of the beloved Stephenie Meyer.
Like her or not, this woman is a genius.
It started with a dream. A literal one. One about a lion
falling in love with a lamb, a vampire falling in love with a human.
"Though I had a million things to do, I stayed in bed,
thinking about the dream. Unwillingly, I eventually got up and did the
immediate necessities, and then put everything that I possibly could on the
back burner and sat down at the computer to write—something I hadn't done in so
long that I wondered why I was bothering,” Meyer said.
Quickly after, Meyer developed a plot for this dream she
had, and three months later, she finished the novel we know as Twilight.
Like most of us, Meyer was quite naive about the publishing process. She thought, and I quote, "I thought it worked like this: you printed a copy of your novel, wrapped it up in brown paper, and sent it off to a publishing house."
But knowing what we know now, the publishing process doesn't quite work that way. Eventually, Meyer subscribed to Writer's Market and found a few literary agencies and publishing houses that she liked. She then sent out a total of FIFTEEN query letters, receiving a few rejections along the way, and then getting picked up by literary agent, Jodi Reamer, a month later.
Together, Reamer and Meyer worked on Twilight for two weeks before sending it to Megan Tingley (of Megan Tingley Books, of Little, Brown and Company ) and then, well, the rest is all history--no, seriously.
In six months, Meyer dreamt, wrote, and published Twilight.
Within one month it was number five on the New York Time's Bestseller list, and within a year, Twilight was named one of Publisher Weekly's best children books of '05.
In the next three years, she completed and published the series, becoming the best selling book of 2008 and 2009.
Today, her books have been translated into 37 different languages.
It's crazy when you consider the time line of things. It's hard for me to even wrap my head around the idea of becoming a best selling author in one year. What the heck?!
Rejections:
I'm not sure how many total rejections Meyer received for Twilight, other than the two she mentioned on her web page. According to the good ol' wiki, she got rejected 14 times. Which means that all of her agents, except for one lucky one, wanted to take on her project.
Why Twilight worked for Meyer:
Twilight worked because it was the purple cow of the industry. I mean, hello: vampires who sparkle in the sunlight instead of die, and a teenage girl who devotes her life to someone who wants to kill her. That's pretty strange if I say so myself, but people want strange--better than that, they want strange romances!
Where are they now:
As of October of this year, Meyer is on a new project: The Storytellers--New creative voices of the Twilight series. Meyer is teaming up with filmmakers and producing short films on a broad number of characters from the Twilight saga.
She is also wanting to know which characters we want to see in film! So hit her up on her social media:
Twitter
FickleFish
Facebook
How can we learn from Meyer?
Well, how can we not? If you have a dream--one that you are so completely in love with--don't run from it, run with it.
Because within a year, you could write and publish that dream novel.
Till next time blog world,
Stay tuned for more from this series!
But knowing what we know now, the publishing process doesn't quite work that way. Eventually, Meyer subscribed to Writer's Market and found a few literary agencies and publishing houses that she liked. She then sent out a total of FIFTEEN query letters, receiving a few rejections along the way, and then getting picked up by literary agent, Jodi Reamer, a month later.
Together, Reamer and Meyer worked on Twilight for two weeks before sending it to Megan Tingley (of Megan Tingley Books, of Little, Brown and Company ) and then, well, the rest is all history--no, seriously.
In six months, Meyer dreamt, wrote, and published Twilight.
Within one month it was number five on the New York Time's Bestseller list, and within a year, Twilight was named one of Publisher Weekly's best children books of '05.
In the next three years, she completed and published the series, becoming the best selling book of 2008 and 2009.
Today, her books have been translated into 37 different languages.
It's crazy when you consider the time line of things. It's hard for me to even wrap my head around the idea of becoming a best selling author in one year. What the heck?!
Rejections:
I'm not sure how many total rejections Meyer received for Twilight, other than the two she mentioned on her web page. According to the good ol' wiki, she got rejected 14 times. Which means that all of her agents, except for one lucky one, wanted to take on her project.
Why Twilight worked for Meyer:
Twilight worked because it was the purple cow of the industry. I mean, hello: vampires who sparkle in the sunlight instead of die, and a teenage girl who devotes her life to someone who wants to kill her. That's pretty strange if I say so myself, but people want strange--better than that, they want strange romances!
Where are they now:
As of October of this year, Meyer is on a new project: The Storytellers--New creative voices of the Twilight series. Meyer is teaming up with filmmakers and producing short films on a broad number of characters from the Twilight saga.
She is also wanting to know which characters we want to see in film! So hit her up on her social media:
FickleFish
How can we learn from Meyer?
Well, how can we not? If you have a dream--one that you are so completely in love with--don't run from it, run with it.
Because within a year, you could write and publish that dream novel.
Till next time blog world,
Stay tuned for more from this series!
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