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When I started my writing career, no one mentioned name recognition as a goal to shoot for. So I made no effort in that direction. After six “sweet” gothics published under my own name, my agent asked me to writer for a packager. Packagers, he told me, put a book or a series of books together, edit them, get the covers done and propose the entire “package” to publishers. What did I know? Sounded fine to me. And money-wise it was. But I wrote under the packager’s series name of Lee Davis Willoughby or Rebecca Drury. Of course my real name was on the copyright page, but what reader ever looks at that?

These books were historicals so I had to learn to write sex scenes. Although my first attempt gave my rather taciturn writer/husband a laughing fit, I finally leaned not to be so flowery. And the research was fun. After seven books for packagers, I finally started writing historicals on my own, using my own name. Except for the final packager who asked me to do a books for him which he subsequently sold to Berkley. The editor there called me up and said, “I think you name is far too depressing to be on a romance, so I’m going to name you Diana Stuart.” At this point a refusal would have screwed up the whole deal , so I agreed.

When I began writing for Silhouette, the line still belonged to Berkley, but Harlequin bought it before my first contemporary romance came out, so my pseudonym came with the sale. H/S would not let me change until their Shadows line made its debut. They considered my real name perfect for these supernatural books, and let me keep it when that line cratered and I was once again writing romances.

The next mistake was mine. I still didn’t understand that many readers expect a writer to stick to one genre because that’s the one they liked to read. So I started changing genres for my historical publisher. I wrote e a horror, plus and two suspense books, and they wouldn’t let me use my real name because they wanted that only for my historicals. So I became Ellen Jamison, for those three books. So now I’m writing in our genres--contemporary romance, historicals horror and suspense.

As if I hadn’t screwed up enough already, my agent set me up for a really bad mistake. All because I wasn’t brave enough to open my mouth when I should have. The packager I had written the “Diana Stuart” historical for, Asked my agent to have me do another book for him. So the agent set up a lunch meeting for the three of us, Both the packager and I expected my pitch would be for a another historical. I had no idea the agent didn’t. So I worked up a synopsis I could pitch briefly. After the usual few moments of chit-chat, the packager asked me to tell him about my new book. Before I could open my mouth, my agent began pitching a thriller book with a plot I’d never before heard. I can excuse myself for being so shocked I didn’t immediately stop him, but I certainly should have jumped in after a moment or two and told him, that wasn’t what I intended to write at all.

I didn’t and so I got stuck with this thriller plot I didn’t want any part of. I really didn’t know how to write a thriller, my heart wasn’t in it, and the packager rejected the story. I felt so betrayed that I finally fired the agent. He eventually died and that’s when I discovered he‘d also been withholding thousands of dollars in royalty money.

What had I learned? Apparently not much, because I then began writing paranormal stories, another genre. But I did get reputable agent, one I still have.

On to electronic publishing and my latest book tomorrow.