Leading a Redwood Writers Conference workshop on networking, Tanya Egan Gibson insisted you don't have to be a good networker; you just need to bring yourself to the table. As an example, Gibson chronicled her novel’s unpredictable path to publication. Though she started writing How To Buy a Love of Reading in 2000, it didn’t hit bookstore shelves until 2009. Working as an English teacher and then a full-time tutor, Gibson finally quit her job to write full time in 2004. That same week she became pregnant. Undeterred, she attended the Squaw Valley writers conference, hoping to impress a particular author whose agent she had in mind for her book.
Gibson had gone there in 2002, dragging along her full manuscript. She had spent over an hour in a container store choosing a box that “needed to say two things: I care, but I’m not trying too hard.” The boxed book, of course, remained in the trunk of her car.
Gibson had gone there in 2002, dragging along her full manuscript. She had spent over an hour in a container store choosing a box that “needed to say two things: I care, but I’m not trying too hard.” The boxed book, of course, remained in the trunk of her car.
This time, to her dismay, the author told her: “Just three to four rewrites and a final revision and it sounds like your book will be ready to send out.” When, in 2006, she was truly ready to query his agent, she emailed the author first. “I don’t remember what your book is about, but I do remember you,” he told her. “You were nice, and funny.” He agreed to contact his agent, and the rest was history.
