Appropriately, this story about a romance writer is a tale of romance and devotion, of long-unrequited love, of perseverance with, fortunately, a very happy ending. 
Adrianne Wood has written regularly since age 15, beginning with sword-and-sorcery fantasy tales that had a strong romance aspect. As early as her college years, she submitted novels for publication. As an adult, she came to focus more on romances, and while working in publishing for nearly two decades--at Penguin, Knopf, Ballantine, Del Rey and, currently, at book packager Becker & Mayer--she kept writing and kept submitting manuscripts. In some cases, she submitted manuscripts to people she worked with--but always without success. Characteristically, she wasn't fazed. "Even though I didn't have anything published, I have worked with a lot of wonderful authors and publishing people," she said. "It has been extremely rewarding day to day."
But recently she signed a two-book contract with Pocket Books, and her first "real" book, Badlands Bride, a western romance, will be published in November. Badlands Bride is the first in a trilogy whose books focus separately on one of three sisters and their adventures in the Wild West. The second book will appear in December 2013.
The catalyst for the change was the Internet, some shifts in genre popularity, a few industry contacts and the involvement of her informal agent and manager (and husband), Kuo-Yu Liang, whose day job is v-p of sales and marketing at Diamond Book Distributors. (He earlier worked at the Central Park Bookstore in San Mateo, Calif., and at Ballantine and Random House.)
In the past few years, Wood said, people urged her to take advantage of the possibilities offered by the Internet to unpublished authors and "get my books out there," she told Shelf Awareness. So early this year, she published an e-version of Badlands Bride via Barnes & Noble's Nook. Under the program, for a month-long exclusive, B&N promoted the title to Nook users. (Besides Liang, Wood received editing help from freelance editor Jenny Smith, a former editor at Ballantine and Penguin, and design assistance from designer Jose Trujillo, formerly of Random House.) Within a week, Badlands Bride made it onto B&N.com's top 100 e-books list and then it became #1 on the general western romances list, which includes print books. "Gosh," Wood commented. "It really does work sometimes!"
Then, with this strong sales history, Liang called Anthony Ziccardi, v-p, associate publisher at Pocket Books. As Wood said, "They took notice." Ziccardi passed the title on to editor Abby Zidle. The rest, as they might say, is western history.
Pocket bought all rights to Badlands Bride, which for the time being, is no longer available as an e-book. "The fact that it was already written and could be put right on the list was important," Wood said. In fact, after some tweaking, the Pocket edition is "pretty close" to the original.
In part, Wood said, she benefited from a resurgence in western romances after a long dry period. She speculated that has stemmed from a renewed reader interest in the frontier, in going back to roots, in "getting in touch with a simple life, not constantly on Twitter and Facebook."
Wood's been enjoying being an author. "It's fun to see publishing from the author's perspective," she said, adding that she's been most struck by how approachable people are. "Publishers and booksellers and authors are all in it for the love of books. That's a good basis for any relationship, especially one like this."
Wood is now working on the second book for Pocket. As she has for years, she follows a routine of waking at 5:30 every morning and writing before getting ready for work. "Three cats want immediate attention, but after that, hopefully the words are flowing and I can write for 90 minutes," she said. The big difference now: she has incentive she never had before and admitted that, without a contract, "I would skip writing some days."
As an unpublished writer, she said, she wrote for herself and for a small audience. "Your mom may like it, too," she said, with a laugh. "With a contract, there is someone else out there waiting for it, and readers wanting it. That's good incentive for working every day and doing your best."
Readers who liked Badlands Bride will be happy to hear that more of the author's work is becoming available. Late last year Wood self-published an e-book version of Unruly Hearts, another western romance, set more than a decade before Badlands Bride. And she has a contemporary paranormal romance that may see the light of day in the next year or two--in part with the help of her husband.
Wood and Liang met at Ballantine. (In "real life," she is Andrian Liang.) After living in New York for eight years (in her case) and 13 years (his), the couple had the opportunity to move to Seattle. At Becker & Meyer, she works on four-color children's books and deluxe adult titles.
Although her husband is one of the busiest people we know in publishing--and travels around the globe 25% of the time--he has "totally jumped into" being her agent, Wood said. "He's always been supportive. He's always given me space to write and all a spouse can do to support a writer. But he's a sales guy, and now that he can do something, he's become fully involved." He's talking with contacts, handling her author website and reviews and, perhaps most important, continuing to make sure she has time to write. "Being the writer in our partnership is a sweet deal," she said. --John Mutter