Today I have the honor of interviewing Mary DeMuth, author of Wishing On Dandelions. When it comes to promoting her books, Mary is a fantastic marketer. She has a busy schedule, but she always makes time to spread the word and that's what you need to succeed in this business. Discover how she worked through ten years of rejections and persevered in her writing...

How did writing become your career? Did it find you or did you find it?

I have loved writing my whole life. After getting an English major in college and teaching squirrelly seventh and eighth graders the finer points of grammar and literature, I stayed home and started having kids. During that time I created a for-profit newsletter called The Giving Home Journal. From there, I started creating and editing church newsletters, followed by trying my hand at magazine articles. Next I became a weekly newspaper columnist in the Dallas area.

One day I sat down and decided to write a book, a dream I'd had a long time. Four months later, I finished. I took it to a big writer's conference and was surprised to meet and acquire an agent. That was 2003. Since then I've written four books with two more on the way. I would say I spent a lot of time and energy pursuing this career. It didn't simply happen to me.

What has been your biggest obstacle when it comes to finding the confidence in yourself to reach for those higher paying writing assignments and what did you do to conquer that obstacle?

Oddly, I've always had confidence in my writing abilities. In my ability to land contracts and high-paying gigs, it's been far more elusive. That's the fickle part of the business that I can't necessarily control. The best way I've found in landing good-paying writing jobs is to genuinely network-not networking for the sake of getting contracts, but networking because I love people and relationships. Many of my professional relationships have, surprisingly, become working relationships.

What has been your biggest struggle locating writing assignments and how did you overcome that struggle?

My biggest struggle at first was finding a match between what I wanted to write and who would publish it. In other words, I may have been passionate about an idea, but initially I had a hard time finding just the right niche for my passion. This led to many query letters that weren't targeted.

I now am better about making sure my writing absolutely fits the market I'm aiming for. I use writer's market guides and contacts with others in the business. There came a time for me when I stopped querying. It's at that time magazines and even book publishers started coming to me. This, of course, happened after I'd spent a lot of time learning the craft. From my first dabble in writing (1992) to my first article published, it took ten years. My first book released in 2005, 13 years later. I wrote for years in obscurity, and eventually it paid off.

Visit Mary DeMuth at http://relevantprose.com/

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