For a long time, MJ Rose was the most successful failure anyone in the book biz had met. Like most levelheaded yet talented people out there, MJ didn't quit her day job. She began her career as a writer of spots (McDonald's, Opium (the perfume), some high-level shampoos and Harlequin Books), at a 150 M agency. It was during the advertising days that MJ listened to over a thousand women in focus groups talk about their likes and dislikes - particularly about fiction.

These were readers of romance, literary and commercial fiction. It was during the copywriter days that MJ gained insight into why many women read - and what these women love to read. Erotic passages, they said, stimulated them. Openly, the ladies talked about one fact: men are seemingly turned on by visual stimulus. Women are turned on by the written word.

More focus groups followed over the years: bras, perfumes, and cosmetic products. Soon MJ found herself wondering about the confused state of women's erotic lives. Women said to MJ - again and again - that their husbands married them because they were sexy, but after marriage and kids, the husbands no longer wanted them to be sexy. What a conundrum!

With the stories of these women in mind, MJ wrote a screenplay, had it optioned, and chucked the advertising whirl to write full-time. One screenplay sale led to six more, five of which got development deals. (One was stolen out from under it - the film flopped. "Karma." Scenes From A Mall, anyone?)

MJ moved onto novels. The first was kept in a drawer. The second, Living The Questions, was a sensual story about a love affair that ended in a murder trial. It got MJ a reputable agent. And thus begins the saga of the publishing of MJ Rose.

The book got a great deal of attention. Two editors were prepared to make offers once the "marketing guys" okayed the editors' deals. However, the marketing department - all male - was scared about the assisted suicide aspect of this first novel.

MJ was told they would be glad to publish it as a second novel, once she had a following. After she stopped sticking pins in her voodoo doll, MJ started the second book.

That was Lip Service, which you can now download [request password] at www.readlipservice.com. The book took two years, working with the same agent and getting same enthusiastic results. Lip Service doesn't fit a genre and the marketing department didn't want to take any chances on an unknown unless there's a pre-existing slot to put the book in," the predominately male departments explained sheepishly.

Soon a major house made a deal via MJ's agent. The deal was accepted.

Four days later the editor told her agent the offer was rescinded. Suddenly, the marketing department realized that MJ was a first-time novelist; they mistakenly thought that this was her second book! "We're not in a position - in this completely mercurial market - to take a chance on a book that doesn't come with built-in readership."

"Look, these days publishing companies read manuscripts looking for reasons not to buy them. If only the book had fit in a genre - or if you had a famous husband [Damage], if MJ was famous, if you had already published."

The agent, more devastated than MJ was, told her to cut her losses.

But this was 1998, and it brought her a great discovery: The Internet's economic publishing realities.

It seemed to MJ that writers who are good enough to get published but don't have big names or fab contacts, might just do it on the 'Net. (And for MJ, who realized she didn't fit into pre-existing slots.the 'Net was a shot at reaching her public.)

Besides the obvious chance to sell self-published copies, and have people download the book directly to their computers, desktop publishing taught her, like many others, that you could typeset a book and electronically print the manuscript for pennies.

Who knows - downloading may become the solution for the future of publishing. Mid-list fiction can be sold via download and many more writers are now made available to a public who, until now, thought that publishers picked the best writers.

Marketing is, of course, key. And of course there's the matter of figuring out what consumers want. After all, it's not easy to find erotic women's fiction on the 'Net.

MJ has learned from her research: what sells on the Web may be what people are too shy to pick up in a bookstore. While women love to read sexy books, how do you ask the person at the register to find it for you? It's not easy.

That's where Lady Chatterley's Library, the firm MJ started earlier this year, comes into play. No one has yet to create a category of well-written good stories that are

For more information, contact:

Michael Di Clemente
R.L.M.
212-741-5106 ext. 10
mike@yeahwhatever.com
http://readlipservice.com