Questions for Canadian Romance Writers

Cherchez La Femme said:

Though I am writing just for the fun of it, I'm also trying to fulfill a life goal and I know my chances of getting published are slightly more than winning the lottery. Still, I was wondering what the market for Canadian writers?

How hard/easy was it for you to get your book published?

What do you think increased/decreased your chances?

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One of the good things about publishing is it's an international business, and books can be published anywhere in the world.

A good friend of mine recently sold her debut novel in the UK, where she lives.

Since that deal was made, her agent has sold rights to publishers in Germany, Italy and America. I have no doubt that further foreign rights deals will be made.

If you finish your book (and you must finish it before you try to find an agent or a publisher), you'll be able to look for an agent or publisher anywhere you like. As you're Canadian, I'd suggest looking for an agent in the USA: it's probably going to be your biggest market, so it makes sense for your agent to be based there.

The ease with which you might get published depends on two things: how good your book is (and "good" here includes how commercial it is, and how polished, as well as how well-written and gripping it is); and how well you query it. If your book isn't very good then it has little chance of finding a home with a reputable publisher; if it's very good, you have a very good chance. If you send out a poor query, or send it to the wrong people then you reduce its chances; if you send out a strong query, to all the right people, your chances are much better.

Remember: the odds are different for every book that's written. There's little point saying that because X number of books are submitted and only Y are ever published your chances are [whatever that calculation would be] because every book is different. Every book has its own chances of getting published. For most, those chances are poor. But for some? They're almost guaranteed a place on the shelves.

And now I'm going to move this from Publishing FAQs to our Romance room, where you'll get responses more tailored to your question.

Cherchez La Femme said:

I notice a lot of the writers are American or English but there isn't a lot of Canadian romance writers out there.

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Hi, fellow Canadian romance writer!

What do you think increased/decreased your chances?

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What increased my chance?

Writing (and completing) five manuscripts before I finished #6, which was my first published novel. Reading a ton of books in the genres I wanted to write in. And researching publishers.

As Old Hack says, write a good enough book and send it to the correct people, and it won't matter whether you live in Antarctica. Actually, these days I feel like I'm there anyway.

Hi Murielle!

I'm not Canadian, but I thought I should chime in and say... I'm Thai, married to an American, living in Italy. At no point in my (very nascent) writing career has anyone asked where I'm from (other than for Tax/Accounting purposes). I submit via email, my books are available online, and I get payed via Paypal (thank goodness!) Then again, I write short, so I've only ever looked at digital-only publishers.

On a completely separate note, I think there are quite a few Canadian romance authors who've found commercial success. Here's the list of attending authors for Romancing the Capital (a romance writer's conference in Ottawa, scheduled for later this year, I believe): http://orc.evelanglais.com/wordpress/attending-authors/ (figured it might be fun for you to look at since the list links to each author's website, so you can scope them/their books out...).

I think you will find their are a lot of Canadian writers but you had no idea they were Canadian.

Are you romances set in Canada?

There are lots of Canadian romance writers. For example: http://torontoromancewriters.com/published-members/

Everything I write is set in Canada and I have books published with an American e-pub. Being Canadian has only mattered when it comes to method of payment.

I'm Canadian, and set a lot of my books in Canada. But I recently sold a series to a larger publisher (previously I'd been selling to e-pubs) and they asked me to move it from Ontario cottage country to somewhere in the US.

My agent is American, and all my publishers are American. except Carina/Harlequin. It makes for slightly more complicated bookkeeping, but it's really not a big deal.