Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 27, 1994 TAG: 9408180012
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Sandra Brown Kelly
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
That's because the novel's author, Inglath Caulder, is the pseudonym for Inglath Cooper, whose family owns The Uttermost Co., a Franklin County supplier of mirrors and wall art. Her husband, Mac Cooper, is president of the company and a captive audience for her manuscripts; she reads to him when they are in the car.
Cooper describes "Truth and Roses" as a story of a couple given a "second chance at love." The main characters are not based on any particular people, she said, but the setting is a "fictionalized Smith Mountain Lake and Rocky Mount."
Cooper grew up in Callaway and went to Franklin County High School, where she met Mac Cooper. They were married in 1987.
Inglath Cooper has an office at Uttermost, and most mornings she is at her desk by 6:30. She writes until about 2 and uses the remainder of the day to do research. She is working on her third book; she thinks the second one is sold.
For the past five years, Cooper, 31, has "seriously" pursued her lifelong goal, to write novels. Before that, she worked on publications for a law firm and did free-lance magazine writing. She graduated from Virginia Tech in 1985 with a degree in English.
Getting "Truths and Roses" to the racks was a long process, she said. It took about a year to write, but even longer to sell to a publisher. Only one in 1,000 manuscripts is accepted, agents told her.
The message left on her answering machine last September saying that Harlequin had bought the book and would pay her an advance on it was the answer to a dream. Cooper said that from the time she was a teen-ager reading Janet Dailey romance books, she had wanted to write her own.
"Truths and Roses" is just a beginning, Cooper said. Because the romance fiction market is so full of new releases, a newcomer has to do a lot of self-promotion to stand out, especially because she doesn't expect to be as productive as some authors who produce a book every three months.
The publishing company gives little help to an author at her level, she said. For example, at her own expense she sent advance copies of "Truths and Roses" to 200 booksellers around the country.
Cooper said she expects the income from sales to cover basic expenses. But she doesn't expect to make enough to yield a profit. "A profit means you come out ahead.
"I have an idea where I want to end up," she said.
She wants to be on The New York Times best-seller list and points out that some authors now on it - Nora Roberts and Sandra Brown - started as writers of what's called "category romance" books.
Harlequin, which represents 1,000 authors worldwide, has 13 categories of books, ranging from "Romance," which offers "gentle, tender love stories with the sweet promise of romantic fantasy," to "Superromance" with its "longer, more involving stores about mature men and women," to "Temptation" books, which present "the sensual, passionate face of romantic fantasy."
A couple of new offerings are mystery and male action books.
by CNB