About Maria
“Maria is a profound role model for women (and men) who wish to pursue their dream.” — Max Chang, UC Berkeley Alumni Association of Utah
A former PR executive who abandoned a successful career to pursue a more fulfilling life, Maria Murnane is the author of the best-selling romantic comedies Perfect on Paper and It’s a Waverly Life. At many of her speaking engagements she shares the “story behind the story,” an entertaining tale of courage, passion and perseverance that has inspired audiences across the country to follow their dreams—no matter what.
A remarkable personal story
Perfect on Paper was initially turned down by several major publishing houses, so Maria self-published and implemented a creative, grass-roots marketing campaign in an effort to prove them wrong. And it worked! Within a year Perfect on Paper attracted the attention of senior executives at Amazon, who chose it out of more than 10,000 self-published titles for the company’s venture into traditional publishing. They offered Maria a contract, and in 2010 an updated version of the award-winning novel was released by the AmazonEncore imprint in the United States. Since then it has also been published in Hungary and Germany, with Serbian and Indonesian versions on the way. The sequel, It’s a Waverly Life, was released in November 2011. The third novel in the series, Honey on Your Mind, is scheduled for a July 2012 launch, and Maria is currently working on the fourth.
Maria has signed on with the same Hollywood film rights agency that represents the authors of Capote and Legend of the Guardians. She has also launched a line of products based on her books that includes witty greeting cards, T-shirts and tote bags.
Organizations that have invited Maria to speak include the Harvard Women’s Leadership Conference, the Massachusetts Conference for Women, the Baltimore Book Festival, the Pennsylvania Conference for Women, the Texas Conference for Women, and Temple University’s Fox School of Business, among many others. (To read testimonials from those who have heard her inspiring story, click here.) She has also been featured in USA Today, Publishers Weekly, Entrepreneur, Money, Shape, and PopSugar.
In addition to working on her own novels, Maria is now a paid blogger for CreateSpace and helps entrepreneurs and aspiring writers realize their dreams of becoming published authors. She was a Regents’ and Chancellor’s Scholar at UC Berkeley, where she graduated with high honors in English and Spanish and was an Alumni Scholar. She also received a master’s degree in integrated marketing communications from Northwestern University.
To learn how to work with Maria, click here.
To order a signed copy of one of Maria’s books, to invite her to speak at an event, or to just send her a note, please click here. She would love to hear from you!