When asked what it was like to publish her first novel, bestselling author Lisa Gardner immediately replies, “Which time?”

After all, Gardner started her career at seventeen, writing category romances before breaking out big ten years later with her first thriller—the career her publishers prefer her to highlight to the world.

“I met Tess Gerritsen when my debut thriller The Perfect Husband was launched. I remember her laughing and telling me in her experience, suspense publishers would prefer it if the romance books never happened. ‘Only in publishing,’ Gerritsen said, ‘can you become a virgin again.’”

So, how did Gardner sell her first, first book?

“I was 17 and didn’t know any better,” Gardner says. “I wanted to see if I could write a book, and low and behold, I did.”

But the idea of publishing her romance novel didn’t cross her mind. Finishing it was enough. Yet her friends in the dorm at the University of Pennsylvania urged her to publish. She sent it to Harlequin, and the editor who reviewed it happened to be an alumna.

“It made her curious and why she pulled mine from the slush pile…Then I spent two years waiting for someone to read it.”

Finally, she received a 20-page, single spaced, revision letter outlining everything she needed to change, “which actually was good. That’s how I learned to write.”

“I had dreams I’d sell my first novel and buy a Mercedes,” Gardner says. “I sold my first novel and could only afford a new computer.”

“I published my first novel and learned a lot. They didn’t pay you much,” she says. The reason, she explains, is she was writing stories in a small niche of the larger romance genre. “That’s how I started my publishing education.”

Her publisher encouraged her to use the pseudonym Alycia Scott, which Gardner later learned wasn’t a good idea. “They’d own the pseudonym…Ignorance is bliss, but that’s a double-edged sword. I didn’t know how daunting this would be…I probably should have talked to a lawyer.”

At her father’s urging, after graduation from Penn, she went on the career hunting circuit. “I got a job my father approved of. A cubicle, benefits, pantyhose—all the comforts of a business life.”

She worked an eight-hour day at her benefits/pantyhose corporate job and then wrote late in the evening into the next morning.

“Within two years I realized I hated it. What I wanted to be when I grew up was a fulltime novelist. So, then I got serious.”

She first joined a writers group—the New England Romance Writers. Up to this point, she didn’t know a single novelist. She immediately began picking their brains. “Why don’t you have an agent?” many asked. “You took a pen name, and do you know they own that? That was really stupid of you.”

As she continued to write romance in her spare time, she began to understand she could never make a living in her genre. “I’d have to write five books a year…So, as I make these revelations, I understand I really need an agent. I really have a business problem. I really don’t know how to make a living at this.” 

“A few of the women romance writers helped me get an agent.” Several knew Damaris Rowland, who was previously an editor at Dell and was looking to become an agent and build a list of authors. When you’re looking, Gardner says, “find an agent with no clients.”

Rowland reads her romance novels and says her sex scenes are okay, “but your violence is exquisite. You need to write thrillers.”

At the time, Tess Gerritsen had just sold Harvest and romance authors Sandra Brown and Nora Roberts were moving into thrillers. 

“Like any good agent, mine saw a path and asked why I wasn’t writing thrillers?” She equivocated, worried about the research that would go into such a novel. “Then I realized I was a research analyst. Research is research…I made the mental leap.” But she hedged her bets and decided to write romantic suspense. “I didn’t know it, but I would write a domestic thriller. That was less of a stretch than a hard-boiled detective.”

She decided she’d have to quit her consulting gig and work fulltime at writing if she were going to write a thriller. “In every career, you reach a moment when you have to take a leap of faith.” But there was a catch. She was under contract with Harlequin to write five more romances. 

She’d give herself a year. “I’d saved money and I was getting paid for these romance novels, but it was lean. I counted my pennies every week.”

“It was the only time in my career I had any benefits. I quit my job. My dad is still mad about it.”

Fortunately for her, both parents were accountants and had taught her cashflow. But even cashflow has its limitations. If there’s no cash, there’s no flow. 

She labored on her novels, working mornings on her contract romances and afternoons on her thriller. To pay her rent she also became a part-time customer service rep for a cellular phone company. “This is the only time in my career I’ve ever done this, and I don’t know how I did it…It was a big come down from consulting.” 

She turned in her pages for her thriller. Her agent told her it was good enough and conducted what Gardner describes as a “modest” three-day auction. Bantam stroked a check, and her advance was “three times larger than what I’d made on all of my romance novels.”

Soon, she received what she describes as a “two-day phone call” from her new editor Beth de Guzman. “She totally ripped my novel apart.” Characters were changed, new plotlines added, and a lot of material eliminated. The book needed to be bigger, de Guzman told her. She worked it, but de Guzman told her she’d only made it more complicated, not bigger. 

“It was a challenging time. It felt like whatever I did, that it wasn’t good enough…It was awkward, choppy, and I took a lot of mis-turns…I ate a lot of brownies, and I got a lot bigger during this time.”

When completed, Bantam wanted to title it “Redemption” and created a cover that de Guzman said was awful. After all of her work, Gardner realized her novel was not being packaged for success.

“I’m beginning to believe my father was right. That job with benefits was looking really good right now.” 

Then one of the sales directors at Bantam read her manuscript. “This is really good,” he said. “We can sell the be Jesus out of this, but you have to give it a new cover and title.” 

The Perfect Husband emerged, and the cover of a burning wedding gown quickly appeared. The cover was so good, the New York Times wrote about it, but failed to focus on anything but the cover. 

“All of a sudden they are printing hundreds of thousands of copies,” Gardner says. “It’s been written up. It’s embossed with foil for flames. They choose mass market to get out more copies.”

The year the Perfect Husband was published is the same year Gardner got married. “A lot of people said, ‘Oh, you must be the perfect husband.’ Given that the perfect husband was a serial killer, it wasn’t the perfect compliment.”

Gardner says she learned a lot about making a living in publishing during her tenure with romance novels and later her shift into bigger thrillers. “I think romance novels teach you how to write about character.” 

To be successful in this business, she says, “you need to accept you’re a small business owner. You need to know marketing and that all roads eventually lead back to the author. If you’re not ready to wear all of those hats, this will be a frustrating business for you.”