A chapter mate of mine, Ellenie, put this on our loop. It is such a great story, I had to share it with everyone:

Olivia gets even

By Jennifer Bojorquez
(Published Aug. 27, 1997)

Soon after her divorce, Olivia Goldsmith decided that what she really wanted
to do was write.

She wrote 100 pages of a novel about three divorced women and sent them to
an agent. He told her everything she wanted to hear. "Oh, you're going to
make a million dollars," he said. "You're going to be rich." The agent went
on and on. His contacts, he said, his good friends in publishing, would love
it. But he told Goldsmith she must finish the book first. "I can't. I don't
have any money," answered Goldsmith, who had quit her job as a marketing
consultant to work on her novel.

But she really wanted to write, so she borrowed money from friends, cashed
in her IRAs and went into debt. After two years, she completed the
manuscript. Her agent sent it to all his good friends in publishing, and
Goldsmith eagerly awaited the good news. They hated it. She received one
rejection letter after another.

"They weren't the nice rejection letters telling me to change this or that,"
says Goldsmith. "They were mean, don't-waste-my-time-again rejection
letters." Nearly penniless and depressed, Goldsmith went on a crying jag.
One night she was home crying and cursing out her agent when the phone rang.

It was someone from Hollywood. All the major studios -- Paramount, Disney,
Warner Bros. -- were bidding on her book. Goldsmith thought someone was
playing a trick on her. The guy from Hollywood assured her it was no joke.
"But my book hasn't been published," she told him. He said someone in the
copy room at one of the publishing houses liked it and somehow it made its
way to Hollywood. Goldsmith was shocked. The Hollywood dealer wanted to talk
business. "Which studio do you want to go with? Who most closely shares your
vision of the book?" he asked her. Without thinking, Goldsmith answered:
"Whose check will clear first?"

Soon all the publishing houses heard about the Hollywood deal, and there was
a bidding war to publish Goldsmith's book. Top editors wrote her saying they
weren't the ones who rejected her manuscript before. "I wasn't in the office
that day," wrote several editors. Goldsmith saved all their letters but
refused to let anyone publish the book who had rejected it before. In the
end, Simon & Schuster landed the deal. Goldsmith threw a party, and all the
top people in publishing were there.

Goldsmith, who has a wicked sense of humor, says she decorated the room with
all her rejection letters. "People laughed, but they were stunned and
embarrassed," she remembers. "Everyone was looking at the letters."

That book, Goldsmith's first novel, "The First Wives Club," sold more than a
million copies. The movie, starring Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler and Diane
Keaton, earned more than $150 million and struck a chord with women. Time
magazine put the movie on its cover.

Since then, Goldsmith has published four other novels, including last year's
"The Bestseller," a book she describes "as my valentine to the publishing
industry."

Some valentine. The book is a juicy behind-the-scenes look at the publishing
world. Goldsmith says her story of getting published is mild compared to
many she's heard. "The people who work in publishing are crazier than the
people who work in Hollywood."

"The Bestseller" revolves around Davis & Dash, a prestigious family
publishing firm, and the ups and downs of five authors: a romance novelist
who needs a hit; a working-class girl who writes her first novel; a ruthless
professor; a talented writer who can't get published; and the publisher who
writes bad novels.

Seven years ago, she couldn't get published. Now she's published four books
and has two more movies in the works. Payback?

"I just wanted to write books about real women's lives," says Goldsmith.

G.