‘It Just
Takes One Yes’ by Sandy Barker
As a pre-teen, I
started sneaking my mum’s Mills & Boon novels from her bedside
table. By my teen years, she was handing over Jackie Collins and
Shirley Conran, and I was devouring Sweet Dreams and Sweet Valley
High books, feeding a four-books-a-week reading habit.
My love of books,
and particularly romance novels, was ingrained by the time I reached
adulthood, and I have read widely across the genre for years,
occasionally delving into writing, but not producing anything
long-form or concrete until I had an epiphany in early 2013.
I was visiting my
sister in London, and on her bookshelf was Lindsey Kelk’s I
Heart New York. I consumed it in half-a-day, then picked up the
next and the next in the series. Three days later, I’d read all
five (there are now eight), and as I finished I Heart London,
I knew. I wanted to write romantic fiction―specifically, travel
romances.
On paper, ‘travel
romance novelist’ was a perfect fit for me. I was an avid traveller
and had been blogging about it for years. I was also a hopeful
romantic, a lifelong romance reader, an English major, and a Drama
and English teacher, so I knew about style, structure, grammar,
characterisation, dialogue, and genre.
All I had to do
was get to work.
My first foray
into writing travel romance caught the attention of an agent here in
Australia, but when I sent him the full manuscript, he replied with
‘this isn’t your first novel, it’s your fifth’. Apparently, I
had too many characters, timelines, and plotlines, and I heeded his
advice to ‘go away and write a single, linear narrative’.
Inspired by my
real-life ‘meet cute’―meeting my partner, Ben, on a pier in
Santorini, just as we were about to embark on a sailing trip around
the Greek Islands―I started writing, diverging from real life by
introducing a second love interest to the story, the silver fox.
On completion, I
went back to the agent and he signed me, shopping my story, which he
called, ‘Eat, Sail, Love’, to all the Australian publishers. But
as excited as he was to introduce them to a fresh new voice in
Australian romantic fiction, no one wanted my particular take on
contemporary romantic comedy. My agent had reached the end of his
contact list and we parted ways amicably.
Dejected, I
wondered if I would ever find my publishing home, or if my manuscript
was destined to sit gathering dust. It was only after we returned
from another sailing trip in Greece, that I seriously considered
self-publishing. Re-energised, I edited my manuscript, paid for cover
art and a copy edit, and self-published at the end of 2017. My book
baby was out there in the world!
And the timing
was perfect. In early 2018, Ben and I embarked on a one-year
international sabbatical, which gave me ample time to write the
follow ups to my first book. We started the year in Bali, then moved
to the US, the UK and Portugal.
When we were in
the UK, I came across UKRomChat on Twitter and joined a passionate
community of romance authors. It was while engaging with that
community that I started considering British publishing houses.
While I
self-published book two in the series and wrote book three, I queried
UK publishers. After each rejection, I honed my synopses and query
letters and reminded myself that I only needed one ‘yes’.
But before I knew
it, I was home in Melbourne and back to ‘real life’, hunting an
apartment and a job. Could I be happy returning to my profession in
adult education and being a part-time novelist who self-published one
or two books a year?
Despondency
kicked in when I realised that I would never achieve my goal―my
dream―of becoming a fulltime novelist.
Not long after, I
received an email from an imprint of HarperCollins in the UK. It was
my one yes. With that offer on the table, I reached out to my agent
of choice, Lina Langlee, and after reading my debut, she agreed to
represent me.
That all happened
in early 2019, and by the end of this year, I will have four books
published by One More Chapter. Book five is well underway, and I
already have ideas for books six and seven and … I still work
fulltime, but my dream is within reach―all because of that one yes.
A Sunset in
Sydney
How far would
you go in the name of love?
Sarah Parsons has
a choice ahead of her. After the trip of a lifetime she’s somehow
returned home with TWO handsome men wanting to whisk her away into
the sunset.
Pulled in two
directions across the globe, it’s making life trickier than it
sounds. Her gorgeous American, Josh, wants to meet Sarah in Hawaii
for a holiday to remember. Meanwhile silver fox, James, plans to wine
and dine her in London.
It’s a lot to
handle for this Aussie girl, who had totally sworn off men!
Join Sarah after
her adventure in One Summer in Santorini, for the heart-warming and
uplifting third novel in The Holiday Romance series.
Google play:
https://bit.ly/3dLjJxU
Sandy
Barker is an Australian writer, traveller and hopeful romantic with a
lengthy bucket list and a cheeky sense of humour. She’s also an
avid reader, a film buff, a wine lover and a coffee snob.
Many of Sandy’s travel adventures have found homes in her writing, including her debut novel, a contemporary romance set in Greece, which was inspired by her true-life love story.
Many of Sandy’s travel adventures have found homes in her writing, including her debut novel, a contemporary romance set in Greece, which was inspired by her true-life love story.
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/sandybarker
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/sandybarkerauthor/
Blog:
https://sandybarker.com/
