Margaret Coel writes:
I wrote my first mystery novel, The Eagle Catcher, in three weeks, sent it to an agent who immediately landed me a three-book, multi-million-dollar deal, and I have been basking on my own island ever since.
Now that is what is known as fiction.
Here is the true story. I wrote The Eagle Catcher over about a four-year period, plugging away in the evenings and on weekends while, during regular working hours, I wrote two non-fiction books and a dozen or so articles, for which I had contracts. When I finally finished the novel, I put on my business cap and went out to sell it.
I entered it in several contests with the idea that if someone other than my husband thought it was pretty good, it would help to convince a publisher. The novel won two of the contests. I then went looking for an agent. Since I’d been a free-lance writer for fifteen years and had published five books and a couple hundred articles, I had a lot of contacts in the publishing world. Through my contacts (I’m a big believer in networking), I found an agent who did, in fact, sell the novel to Berkley Publishing and get me a three-book contract in pretty short order.
But that is not the end of the true story. Berkley decided to publish The Eagle Catcher in paperback, which rocked me back on my heels. My other books had all been published first in hardback and had come out later in paper. While I was trying to wrap my mind around “paperback original,” I got a phone call from Luther Wilson, then director of The University Press of Colorado, which, along with the Colorado Arts and Humanities Council, had co-sponsored one of the contests I had entered. The Eagle Catcher had been one of the winners. Luther said the words all writers long to hear: “I love your novel, and I want to publish it.”
“Hardback?” I said.
“Of course,” he said.
So my agent worked out an arrangement with Berkley which allowed the University Press to publish the book in hardback before Berkley brought out the paperback edition. And that resulted in more publicity than I could have ever expected. The book hit all the right buttons in the very big market for book collectors. Mystery. Indians. University Press. Limited Printing. Rare book dealers around the country advertised The Eagle Catcher in newsletters, magazines and on the internet. The first copies sold out before the novel came off the presses. The second printing also sold out rapidly, and the book went into additional printings.
Thanks to that wonderful send off, Berkley has published the rest of the novels in the series first in hardback, then in paperback.
Margaret Coel is the New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Wind River mystery series set among the Arapahos on Wyoming's Wind River Reservation and featuring Jesuit priest Father John O'Malley and Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden. Her latest book, Eye of the Wolf, will be released this September.
