Unpublished Manuscripts: 4 of 5

We're nearing the home stretch in our series. Today's guests are Jane Toombs, Judi Fennell, and Jane Myers Perrine.

Jane Toombs is the author of North Of Nonesuch Anthology from Whiskey Creek Press, coming in November 2008, with print and electronic versions available at Amazon and Fictionwise.

How many manuscripts do you have that didn't sell?

Three.

Do you have them as a saved file? A hard copy manuscript? Or both?

I paid to have all three transcribed into electronic format by a person who does this for a reasonable cost so the hard copy has been destroyed. The closet in my writing room now contains far too many folders. I’m never going to get around to investigating the contents of them all.

I was lucky enough to have saved an old computer without internet access that had a port for old 51/4 floppy diskettes and one for 3 ½ floppy diskette so I was able to get two finished manuscripts transferred onto the smaller ones so they could be edited on a newer computer. Sold them both. Then I transferred everything I might ever use the same way, so I was able to get rid of all the big floppies which took up all the shelf space.

If hard copy, where do you store them?

In my closet I still have unfinished paper copies of six manuscripts I never finished for one reason or another, and probably never will. Can’t bear to throw them away.

Judi Fennell is the author of In Over Her Head, ISBN 9781402220012, coming from Sourcebooks, June 2009.

How many manuscripts do you have that didn't sell?

I recently sold my first book. Well, actually my first three books. Only one of them is written. I have four others that haven't sold, but two are part of a trilogy. I'm hoping to pitch them as my option. The other one was rejected by my publisher before I sold, but is still sitting on another editor's desk from months ago. The other. . . well, that's the book that goes in the drawer that no one will ever see. Oh, and I still have the hard copy of one I wrote when I was in 9th grade. Yes, I thought I was going to sell to Harlequin at fifteen. I don't think I ever even queried it.

Do you have them as a saved file? A hard copy manuscript.? Or both?

I save all of them as electronic files. I do that with each manuscript, tossing out the last version if I revise it. We have a fireproof safe in our house where I store the CDs. So much easier to save than paper.

If hard copy, where do you store them? The only one in hard copy is the one from 9th grade. And that, too, is in the safe: more for sentimental reasons than any prayer of publication.

Jane Myers Perrine, a 2008 Desert Rose finalist, is the author of Deep in the Heart, a September 2008 release from Steeple Hill Love Inspired.

How many manuscripts do you have that didn't sell?

10 (You don't want to know the number of proposals that didn't fly.)

Do you have them as a saved file? A hard copy manuscript? Or both?

I have the latest few saved on my computer and elsewhere. I have two very early ones in hard copy. The rest are gone, thrown away because they'd never sell without more work than I'm ready to spend. They were really horrible!

If hard copy, where do you store them?

In file folders on a shelf. Two don't take up much room.

Come back tomorrow for the last day of this special report when our guest authors will be: Jamie Leigh Hansen, L. C. Hayden, P. J. Mellor, and Maryann Miller.

Takeaway Truth

Certain themes are woven through all these authors' stories - persistence, saving what is written and using it again in some way, and saving manuscripts in hard copy sometimes if only for sentimental reasons.