Saturday, June 17, 2017, I met Kevin Spall the CEO/President of Thomson-Shore books. I met him in a restaurant in Ann Arbor where I pitched him my latest contemporary romance book with the working title: The Cattle Baron’s Redemption.
This was the first time I have pitched a book to anyone. I wasn’t nervous. I was intrigued by the process. I wondered what he would ask me. How did I come to this place of writing romance novels? I think I blacked out when he asked me that. I know my lips were moving and something was coming out because I could hear the sound of my voice droning about something. I think I said something like, I read a romance novel a couple of years ago and thought I could write something like that, so I did. Ugh! Well! Of all the nerve. Not anything about my love of reading romances and my interest in their stories or my interest in crafting a good story–at least I think it is a good story. My mother (and two cats) seem to think so.
I was caught up in the moment. He wrote something on the top right corner of the two-page synopsis I brought along and gave him. I wonder what that something was. Now having gone through the process of pitching for the first time I look forward to getting to pitch more often to other book industry insiders.
I keep trying to tell myself that I might have bombed the pitch, but daily, even sometimes hourly, search my email for a message from Thomson-Shore. I sent a thank you note today with a logline for the longer novel. I hope, I wish, I’ll keep my fingers crossed and keep checking my email for a response from Kevin Spall.