Debut Romance Author - Melanie Robertson-King

Melanie Robertson-King

Thank you for inviting me to Romancing the Genres to talk about my publishing journey. Conventional or not, it’s how I got there.

I’ve always had a vivid imagination so writing fiction is a great place to put it to use, especially when I work in a job that is very cut and dried with no grey areas. The summer I graduated from elementary school, I started writing and illustrating a story. There was little plot and it went on and on and on… Thankfully, secondary school began and this never-ending story came to an end.

Throughout school, I hated history – with a passion, I might add. It was boring. Only dry facts that we had to learn and memorize. The only Canadian history we ever studied was the War of 1812... over and over and over.

I always knew my Dad was raised in an orphanage in Scotland before he immigrated to Canada but it wasn’t until the genealogy bug bit me that I delved into my own heritage and realized that history isn’t so bad after all. At least now, I was finding more than just hatch, match and dispatch (birth, marriage, death) dates and places.

In 1993, I made my first trip to Scotland where I visited the former orphanage and my father’s birthplace. I’m not sure if that’s when the wheels started turning or not, but I was inspired by the rugged beauty of the country, and its broodiness in foul weather.

Return trips in 1997 and 1999 (I schmoozed with Royalty on this trip when I met Princess Anne at the former orphanage) and reading Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series really set the wheels churning. A friend and co-worker who had read my short stories fuelled the fire even more when she told me I should try writing a book because she thought I could do just as good a job.

My debut novel began its life as a (not-so-well written) novella, or as I referred to it back then an overgrown short story because I had no idea what a novella was. Boy was I green.

Many drafts, new characters, and umpteen more revisions later, and just as many rejections, I was about to give up. Then I heard about an online writing conference where there were workshops and the opportunity to pitch to publishers and agents. I signed up and got a pitch appointment with the President of 4RV Publishing, Vivian Zabel. I mean nothing ventured, nothing gained. The pitch session went extremely well and I was asked to submit.

By Thanksgiving Monday (Columbus Day in the US), I had my submission as perfect as it possibly could be and sent it off. According to the 4RV website, it could take some time to get a response, so I was completely gobsmacked when later that evening, I had a return e-mail saying they were offering me a contract. 

And that’s been my publishing journey from the very early days until now – October 2011 contract offer, January 2012 assigned an editor and my cover (which I had input on), and finally September 2012 when my book made its debut at the Kansas Book Festival. Since then, I hosted a launch in my hometown, did a twenty-one stop, fifteen day blog tour, and did signings at various seasonal events in the lead-up to Christmas.

The one line that best describes my book is “When a contemporary teen is transported back through time to the Victorian era, she becomes A Shadow in the Past…”

Check out Melanie's website Here