From the story card:
Plan B 98,000 words Lee & Miller #14 Liaden Universe #4 6/1/96
6/3/96: To [agent]
Rejected throughout 1996-97 by Avon, Tor, Del Rey
* * * * * * * * * * * *
2/1998: Sold reprint rights to Meisha Merlin as part of a 7-book deal
2/1999: PUBLISHED
2001: Ace buys mmp rights to all 7
* * *
Plan B is the book that brought us back from the dead (the first time). We had reached a nadir in our creative life. We had not stopped writing, we had only stopped selling. I believe that there were more than the three publishers noted on the card who rejected the book; I think I was too heart-sick to keep the card up.
Agents and editors alike told us they had “no confidence” in what we were doing, and yet — we had readers. We had People writing to us on the internet, in the US mail; bookstore owners — all, all asking us “When is Plan B coming out?”
We found out some time later that, when bookstore owners asked Del Rey sales reps this question they were told that Steve Miller and Sharon Lee had divorced and there wouldn’t be any more of their work forthcoming.
. . . which still gets my heart racing. How. DARE. They?
Ahem.
So, anyway, we were looking at ways to get our work out there — this is in the mid-1990s; we did not have ebooks. We did have SRM Publisher, which was self-publishing all those stories that no one had any “confidence” in, as chapbooks, but novels were a whole ‘nother game.
We were, in fact, on the verge of signing a contract that would have us paying an established small press to produce our books (an act which would have pretty much torched our credibility as “real writers”) when several things that Never Happen — happened.
We got a call from Stephen Pagel of Meisha Merlin Publishing, a brand new house, the business model of which was to reprint well-loved mass market originals into a more durable form. And Mr. Pagel wanted to reprint our first three mass market original novels, which he described as “charming.” Were they available?
Note: Editors never call writers to ask if they have a book they’d like published.
And we said, “Yes, they are. In fact, we just got the rights to Carpe Diem back a couple months ago.”
“Wonderful! Would you be interested in seeing them reprinted as a hardcover omnibus?”
“That would be great,” I said, and looked at Steve. He nodded, and I said, somewhat hesitantly, “There’s something you should know.”
“What’s that?”
“There are four more … novels. Seven altogether.”
“In the same universe?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” said Stephe Pagel, in what is now the second most surreal moment of my life, “I’ll take them.”
Note: This never happens. Never.
* * *
Plan B is now in effect.
This is not a test.
Cover art by Michael Herring