Re: post book blues---sorry I am whinging :(((

[Guest guest]

Wow how exciting. How do you become a published novelist? Do you know

people in the trade, have you always been a writer or did you write a novel

and then seek a publisher?

What an amazing achievement. I felt chuffed to bits when I finished my

University dissertation (18K words), felt like I had achieved something

really special...at the time (now its just a boring book on motivation and

Little Chef restaurants (long story)).

Winge all you like, sounds like you have good cause to let off some steam

Mum to Rohan (3 mths)

[Guest guest]

> Wow how exciting. How do you become a published novelist? Do you

know

> people in the trade, have you always been a writer or did you write

a novel

> and then seek a publisher?

I have written about this before on here and don't want to sound as if

I am " full of myself " ... It's not quite as amazing an achievement as

you think bc my publishers specialise in the Jewish market, in which

there is less competition than mainstream fiction, so it is easier for

me to get accepted by them than by a non-jewish publisher.

I wrote four novels about ten years or more ago, also published by a

(different) Jewish publisher, in the USA. They were successful novels

in their genre and are in fact still available from www.eichlers.com

if you do a search on Ruthie Pearlman you will find 3 of them at any

rate.

Unfortunately the publishers were dodgy and didn't pay me my royalties

due. (Well, after a lot of nagging on my part they'd send me a bit of

money, just enough to shut me up, but never what I was owed).

The fourth book ( " my son " ) which is almost unobtainable now,

was deliberately published just before they went bankrupt and then

they popped up the other side of the bankruptcy saying they no longer

existed in their original form, so had no further reponsibilities to

pay me my royalties. my son was a success and I never got one

cent. They used the proceeds for this novel to help them out of their

debts. As you can imagine, this

embittered me very much towards writing Jewish fiction, and actually

caused me a great personal religious struggle as I felt if my own

faith could behave like this to its own, did I really want to be part

of it?

It took me ten years of anguish before I could bring myself to write

for the Jewish market again, and all that time I was being pressured a

lot to write more books. I just *couldn't*.

Now I have a lovely new publisher, Targum Press, based in Jerusalem,

where we have a second home, and the editor, Mimi is my friend, and

the boss Rabbi Dombey pays me on the nail without me having to nag

even once. OK so I will never be famous like Grishham or

Deaver, but I am happy writing Jewish crime fiction so long as people

are happy to read it, and so far they seem to be.

Ruthie

[Guest guest]

> Ruthie needs cheering up.

Sending some 'happy' vibes to you Ruthie.

:-))) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

There they go!

Barbara

[Guest guest]

> > Ruthie needs cheering up.

>

> Sending some 'happy' vibes to you Ruthie.

>

> :-))) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

>

> There they go!

>

> Barbara

:-))))) Thanks !

Ruthie