Read Online Five Pages a Day by Peg Kehret - Free Book Online Page B

was done, I sent it to a different agent, a woman I had met at a conference.
    She sold it quickly, but the terms of my contract with the publisher were terrible. Usually, a publisher agrees to pay an author royalties. This means that every time a copy of the book is sold, the author receives a percentage of the price. This contract gave me only a small one-time payment. No matter how many years the book stayed in print or how many copies it sold, I would not get any royalties.
    When I balked at that, the agent told me I should feel lucky to sell the book at all.
    Afraid that if I didn’t sign the contract, I would have yet another unsold book in my desk drawer, I accepted the terms, and Refinishing and Restoring Your Piano was published.
    I had called the book How to Refinish Your Piano , and I argued long and hard against using the word “restoring” in the title. In Carl’s business, restoring means making the mechanical parts work the way they did originally, and my book did not go into that. In the end, the publishers used the title they wanted.
    Despite the problems, I was happy with the book.
    I had my byline on many magazine pieces and plays by then, but a book is different. A book feels substantial. A book hints of immortality. Every time I went to the library I looked up my own name and was always glad to find it, along with the titles of my books. Both of them.
    About then, I received another letter that changed my life. This one was from the editor who had published the book of wedding vows and some of my plays.
    â€œWe want to publish a book of monologs for students,” he told me, “and we’d like you to write it for us.”
    I hesitated. Monologs are short dramatic pieces that one person reads or recites from memory. I knew that actors often used them as audition pieces, and speech and drama teachers assigned them as classroom practice, but was there really a market for such a book? On the other hand, editors were not waiting in line to buy books from me. I decided to give it a try, and I began writing monologs from a kid’s point of view.
    Because most monologs are only two or three pages long, I needed many different ideas in order to fill a book. I ended up with sixty-five monologs, and I loved every minute of the work.
    Some of the monologs were funny, some were sad. I wrote about a first date, braces on teeth, dreams of being a professional athlete, school cafeteria lunches, fire drills, and Halloween candy. One monolog, “My Blankee,” fondly recalls a special baby blanket. Another gives detailed instructions on the best way to eat cotton candy. My favorite, “The Winner,” is about a girl who loses a poetry contest but gains far more than the twenty-five-dollar prize.
    As I wrote, I realized that in writing for children, I had found, at last, my true voice as a writer.
    I had spent ten years as a professional writer since that first unsold mystery. I knew my work had improved. When I finished Winning Monologs for Young Actors , I decided to write another novel, a mystery for young readers.
    When my new agent heard this, she said, “Don’t do it. It’s next to impossible to sell a children’s novel these days. Write another how-to book instead.”
    â€œI don’t know enough about anything else to write a how-to book,” I replied. “Besides, I want to write fiction.”
    â€œNonfiction is easier to sell,” she said.
    I considered her warning. If I never write another novel, I thought, then I’ll have no chance of publishing one. If I write one, at least there will be a possibility of publication. I never regret things I’ve written, but I knew I would regret not writing what I most wanted to do. I decided to take the risk.
    With the agent’s gloomy predictions of failure ringing in my ears, I began a new novel. This time, I paid attention to what had been published recently. I read dozens of children’s