Esther Summers asked Barbara Freethy:

First of all I have enjoyed each one of your books. They are refreshing and bring a smile to my face. My question is, What did you do to keep writing and not lose confidence in yourself when receiving--good story but no thanks rejection letters?

Barbara Freethy Hi Esther - Writing is a tough business. You're always being reviewed whether it's by agents, publishers or the readers. I think you have to write what you love first, so that the experience of the writing is of value to you. And you have to keep the faith in your story. The business of publishing, the 5 big publishers, and numerous small publishers, often reject a story based on a lot of other factors besides the actual story, like they already have a similar plot line, or they don't think that genre is trending up in sales, or they think the manuscript needs some work but they don't want to spend time on it.

So I would keep writing, keep looking at comments that you get back to see if you can make improvements and keep putting your work out there. And you can always now self publish so if you have a polished professional product, you can put it on all the retail sites yourself. There are lots of options now for writers!

Good luck!

Barbara

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