and the third one…

Maria Murnane left a successful career in public relations, boarded a plane to Argentina for a two-week trip, and decided to pursue her dream of writing a novel. One year later, she was living in Buenos Aires and had finished the manuscript of Perfect on Paper: The (Mis)Adventures of Waverly Bryson, based on the humorous real life struggles she and her friends faced when charting their romantic paths. She returned to the States, found an agent who loved the book, and began searching for a publisher to bring it to the masses. Both she and her agent were surprised at the flood of rejections the book received. In the end, 13 publishers said the same thing: “Chick lit is dead.”

“After two years of rejections, I didn’t know what else to do, so I did nothing,” says Maria. “I left the book sitting on my computer and started a freelance writing business. Then, about six months later, my dad handed me a book on self-publishing, along with a little plan he’d written for what I needed to do to publish on my own. He told me he loved my book and that I couldn’t let it go, so he was going to help me publish it myself. It nearly made me cry.”

Inspired by her father’s faith in her work, Maria went after her goals with renewed energy and found independent publishing to be the solution she was looking for. “I went to Amazon to self-publish, because people told me how easy it was to work with, and they were absolutely right,” Maria said. “My goal was to prove the publishers who had turned me down wrong. On the marketing side, I knew that reviews from Amazon customers could help my book through word of mouth. And it worked!” Soon after self-publishing, Maria had racked up more than 100 positive Amazon customer reviews.

That’s when Amazon took notice of this promising new talent in the women’s fiction genre and offered Maria the book deal she’d always wanted, complete with editing, publicity, and distribution. “It took years of hard work and rejection, but I finally got the call I’d always dreamed of,” said Maria, “and it came from Amazon. They’ve been there for me every step of the way and believed in me and my work from the start.” One year after its publication, Perfect on Paper climbed to No. 2 on the Kindle bestseller list.

Maria is now living her dream of writing full-time, with two sequels already written and another on the way. She travels the country year-round, speaking to groups and conducting webinars and workshops to help other authors create their own literary paths and achieve independent success.

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