Christina Dodd lights a CANDLE IN THE WINDOW
A lot of you know (if you’ve read my bio or heard me speak) that before I was published I spent ten years writing and not-writing and making excuses and writing badly and very slowly and not-writing some more and whining and writing for six years on a really awful, long, dreadful historical set in Guatemala, then on a short contemporary, then on another historical set in Medieval England, then on another contemporary … then all of a sudden, the historical set in Medieval England sold and I was a published author.
And you’re thinking, Christina, how could it be all-of-a-sudden when you’d been working toward that goal (sporadically, badly, but still working) for ten years?
It’s easy. One minute I’m writing on my fourth book because by now I’m convinced I’ve died and gone to unpubbed hell, and the next the phone rings (on Friday, February 2, 1990 at 3:30pm) and I’ve sold a book.
That book was CANDLE IN THE WINDOW.
The first print run (the number of books printed to be sent out to the market) was 25,000 — a really, really low number.
The advance was $5,000 — also a really, really low number, especially if we figure a 40-hour week x 52 weeks a year x 10 years = 20,800 hours. We then divide that by $5,000 and realize that my salary for that ten years, I made a whopping 24 cents an hour.
Do I have a point (other than to make you giggle)?
Why, yes. Yes, I do.
This month, after almost sixteen years of being in print, a Golden Heart award, a RITA award, a Romantic Times award, and its third, brand-new cover, CANDLE IN THE WINDOW has been re-released with a print run of 60,000. CANDLE IN THE WINDOW been reprinted so often, I have no idea how many copies are in print, but I estimate close to 300,000. I’ve earned out my advance. J Best of all, I still get mail from fans who have been touched by CANDLE IN THE WINDOW. http://christinadodd.com/excerpt.php?excerptid=1
I know it’s corny, but it’s the New Year, so I get to be sincere — if you want to do something badly enough — to write, to lose weight, to get a degree — then do it. If it’s too hard, quit. If you fail, take off some time to mourn or, better yet, whine. Then come back and do it again. The Japanese say it very well — “Fall down seven times; stand up eight times.”