5 Things Everyone Says to First Time Authors

I was thrilled last month to sign a contract with a publisher to publish my first romantic suspense novel under the pen name, Angela Evans. The reactions I have received from friends and family as I share my news has been varied, and yet still followed a predictable path.

• I should write a book! This response has generally come from the people you would categorize as "least likely to ever write a book." I'm not sure if writing and publishing a book sounds like easy money to them, or if they just think if I can do it anyone can do it. Maybe anyone can do it, (after all I did), but I can promise you it's far from easy money. More like pour every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears you have into creating a story on the page and then hope someone buys it so you can prove to your family you weren't really just wasting time. Or avoiding them. Or both.

So now I've taken every response you had for when someone, maybe even me, says "My book is going to be published!" So now you're wondering, what the heck am I supposed to say then?

Start with "Congratulations!" and then go straight into "Wow, that's so exciting!" You can even throw in, "I didn't know you were a writer, have you always written?"

And, of course, the best closer is always "Where can I buy a copy?"

In the end, it doesn't really matter if you say some of these things, all of these things, or none of these things because in the end anyone who just got an acceptance letter to hang on their wall next to the gigantic stack of rejection letters they've collected is too over the moon to be bothered by anything at all.