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Writing is just part of the process
Trent says path to publication takes networking
Friday, Jan. 8, 2010
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by SUSAN CRATON
New author Christine Trent sits with a copy of her recently released book of historical fiction, "The Queen's Dollmaker," at her home in Redgate. Trent signed a two-book deal with Kensington Publishing.
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She called it "an interesting adventure."
New author Christine Trent of Redgate wasn't talking about the plot of her just-released first book, "The Queen's Dollmaker," a work of historical fiction set in France and England in the late 1700s.
Trent was talking about the struggle to get her book published.
In a business environment that has been increasingly pushing writers toward the self-publishing option, Trent bucked the odds and came away with a two-book contract.
"Everyone told me you had to have an agent," Trent said, sitting in the library of her home at the end of December.
The problem was, agents don't have much time for an unpublished writer. Trent received approximately 30 rejections from prospective agents.
She tried another tack.
Trent attended a writing conference in California (when and where??), where she met an editor, a representative from Kensington Publishing, an independent publisher of hardcover, trade and mass market paperback books based in New York City. The editor invited Trent to send a query with an overview of her book. Trent did, and the book was accepted.
So Trent's advice to other aspiring writers is to network with those in the business. "It's through conferences that you actually meet editors and agents," she said. "You can't just write in a vacuum."
After working on and off on "The Queen's Dollmaker" for about three years and then struggling to learn how to navigate the publishing world, Trent said Kensington Publishing's acceptance of her book finally came via e-mail in September 2008 about two years after her book was finished. "I probably giggled for two straight weeks after that," Trent said, laughing.
Trent, who has a master's degree in business management, worked for about the last 20 years as a management consultant at a variety of defense contracting firms in St. Mary's County. She also teaches a class on project management for Johns Hopkins University at the Southern Maryland Higher Education Center. Trent has recently dropped her consulting work to concentrate on writing.
Diane Townsend of Hollywood, a longtime friend of Trent's who worked with her at PRB Associates in Hollywood, now part of Northrop Grumman, said she was not surprised at Trent's career change.
"She loved to read. It just seemed to follow," Townsend said this week. "Have you seen her library?"
That library is a two-story addition to the Trents' home, where the upper floor (fiction) is connected to the lower floor (non-fiction) by a spiral staircase. The library houses the Trents' collection of about 3,000 books and was built to hold at least twice that number. "She designed that herself," Townsend said.
Townsend, along with Trent's mother, served as early readers for "The Queen's Dollmaker." Townsend estimated that she read through the manuscript between eight and 10 times.
"The book was so good, I didn't mind reading it [multiple] times. It's an engaging book. It's very well done," Townsend said.
"The Queen's Dollmaker" follows the story of Claudette Laurent after she loses her parents in a fire in Paris and then travels to England to eventually establish herself as a dollmaker. Her work brings her in contact with the upper level of society, including the court of Marie Antoinette.
The story required a great deal of research on dollmaking during that period, as well as the history of the period.
Trent got the idea from the story, she said, when she was working with her own collection of approximately 300 dolls and was thinking about a just-read biography on the French queen. "What if the queen had a favorite dollmaker?" Trent said she asked herself.
Trent's portrayal of Marie Antoinette is sympathetic. "I agree she was spoiled and a bit vain," she said. "But she wasn't doing anything any other aristocrat was doing in France at the same time."
And Trent was impressed that the queen did not escape with her children when she had the chance. "She could have left," Trent said. "It spoke of great courage."
By the cover illustration, "The Queen's Dollmaker" appears to be a romance. And while the story includes some romance, the story focuses on historical events of the time and the main character's efforts to establish herself in her craft, rather than her relationships. So, rather than a strict romance, the book is being marketed as historical fiction.
Townsend has also read the manuscript to Trent's follow-up book, which follows the subsequent story of some of the characters from "The Queen's Dollmaker." This second book was completed in October, and Townsend said it is even better than Trent's first. "It's delicious," Townsend said.
Trent's husband, Jon Trent, a systems architect for the Navy Enterprise Resource Planning Program, said he hasn't even read his wife's first book, thinking it was in the "chick lit" genre. However, he served as more of a sounding board for the second book's writing, he said, and he read the final version.
"It was very good," he said.
This follow-up book is scheduled for release in 2011.
"I just finished a proposal for the third," Trent said, though she wouldn't discuss details.
She passed on some hard-won information about becoming a published author to other aspiring writers.
"You just have to keep trying," Trent said. "It's not something that happens in months. It takes years."
If you want to go
A book signing for Christine Trent's book, "The Queen's Dollmaker," will be held Jan. 23 from 1 to 3 p.m. at Bay Books in the Wildewood shopping center in California.
In addition, Trent will participate in a discussion about her book on March 1 at 7 p.m. at the Calvert public library in Prince Frederick, where she will also make an appearance dressed as Marie Antoinette on March 22 at 7 p.m.
Trent will also be the guest speaker at this year's Friends of the Library annual dinner on May 10 at Café des Artistes in Leonardtown.
