Local Romance Author Shares Sultry Secrets About Book Publishing Industry

Romance was in the summer time air when local author Adrienne Basso brought the style of her passionate novels to the Cranford Public Library.

Basso gave a presentation entitled “Isn’t it Romantic?” to eager fans Monday night, focusing on her journey to publication and how the book industry has changed over the years. Following the event, Basso gave away some of her previous novels for free and signed autographs for fans. 

Basso, a North Plainfield resident, full time childrens’ librarian at Westfield Memorial Library, and mother of two had her first romance novel published in 1994. She began writing in middle school and penned articles for various newspapers, eventually studying journalism in college. However, the tedious word counts and fact-checking of the press limited her writing style, and she branched out into the world of fiction. Today, Basso prides herself on writing romance novels with, “emotionally satisfying endings.” 

During the presentation, Basso promoted her upcoming nineteenth novel, Tis The Season to be Sinful. The Victorian-era Christmas tale will hit the stands in October of this year. Some of her other novels include How to Enjoy a Scandal, The Wedding Deception, and her most recent work How to Seduce a Sinner, released in January. Some of her novels have been published in ten different languages.

Basso offered advice to young and upcoming writers, saying they, "have to make the time to write books." Basso gave four steps to being a successful writer in today’s day and age: work hard, be talented, get lucky, and be persistent.Basso stated that one in 600 manuscripts actually get published, but reinforced the fact to not give up.

“You have to keep working and keep trying,” she said. “It’s not great odds but its not impossible odds.”

The author also chatted about how to correctly sell your manuscript, copy editing, choosing artwork and the importance of a literary agent.

“A good agent will make your career, and a bad one agent will sink it,” she said.

Even though the print business seems bleak now with the Internet taking charge and technology like Amazon’s Kindle putting books on the backburner, Basso seemed positive about it all.

“Blogging and communicating has had a positive effect," she said. "You can learn a lot from other writers online.”