It's an Epidemic!

A few months ago, my local paper ran an article about a group of writers in my area who get together to support one another and commiserate over their rejections. (It wasn't the local RWA chapter, to which I belong.) Several people quoted in the story lamented over how impossible it is for a debut author to get published in New York these days. Agents and editors won't even consider an unpublished writer's work, let alone offer a contract for publication!

But is that really true? That the unpubbed, to quote Rodney Dangerfield, don't get no respect?

I used to think so. I was pretty sure that getting an offer of agent representation or of publication were longshots akin to winning the lottery. Unlike the lottery, that didn't stop me from trying, but I knew the odds were poor.

Yesterday, however, I realized that in the past year, I've seen a lot of my unpublished friends become either agented or sold or both. I mean, a significantly higher percentage than anyone would expect based upon the statistics we all hear all the time (agents reject 99% or more of all submissions that come to them, only one-tenth of one percent of books that come before a NY editor are published, etc.). In fact, these events have been occurring so often lately, it seems like a virtual epidemic.

I still think it's DAMN difficult to get published. I know quite a few authors whose work I think is more than worthy of a six-figure contract who have been rejected repeatedly by agents and editors alike. And yet...it doesn't seem to be to be quite the crapshoot it once did. Authors with lots of skill and talent and more than a little bit of good luck and timing can and do get published. Even if they haven't got a previous publishing credit to their name.

Agents are still looking for new authors whose work they love to represent. Publishers are looking for new blood, new voices. And with diligence and perseverance, new authors do get published.

So, yay for the aspiring and unpubbed. Go forth and submit. And never abandon hope!

YOUR TURN: Do you feel encouraged when an unpublished author sells? Or do you think, "There goes another slot for a debut author; now I'll never get published!"

P.S. A hearty congratulations to Avon FanLit winner and all-around sweetheart, Sara Lindsey, whose three-book deal with NAL/Signet was announced this week, thereby inspiring this post.

Sometimes the Writer's Life is Like an Episode of Lost…

Please welcome today's Guest Maven, Amie Stuart.

Complete with the flash-forwards!

Thanks so much to the Mavens for inviting me! I’m celebrating the release of NAILED this week. NAILED is the single-title erotic romance I turned in January of 2007 to fulfill my first book contract. Eighteen months later, I’m hard at work on SCREWED (the follow-up) on the cusp of finishing up my second contract. Hard as it is to believe, NAILED was two books ago and SCREWED is slated for a Spring 2009 release--there’s no telling what pies I’ll have my little fingers in come nine months from now, which goes to the point of my post.

In this business, when so much of what we do may not see the light of day for months or even years, it is difficult to live in the moment. You find yourself distracted and pulled fifty different ways by contracts and negotiations and trying to write new projects to sell.

I distinctly remember coming back from RWA last year. I’d finished up that first contract, and parted ways with my second agent. Despite the fact I was HORRIBLY sick, I was TERRIFIED I wouldn’t get another contract offer, let alone find another agent! At the encouragement of a friend, I found myself querying new agents and gently nudging my editor weekly about my option book between naps and doctor visits. Lo and Behold, Audrey came through, and I did get another contract. I was so relieved. Except now, I was sick AND under deadline.

I learned a very important lesson, though and as I sit here, near the end of the second book of my contract…I’m getting ready to say something that might get me hit or burned at the stake or stoned. I’m getting ready to say something that just nine short months ago, I would have never believed I’d say.

I’m looking forward to NOT being under contract.

*ducks*

Now, I know there are probably some unpublished authors out there wondering what I’m smoking. I can assure you that I’m perfectly sane. You know all those folks who say that selling to New York is simply trading off one set of worries/issues/problems for another? They’re right. And believe me, I’m not complaining. I know just how lucky I am, and there are writers who would do some mad voodoo to trade places with me, but I’m ready to get off the merry-go-round for a while and catch my breath—-it’s been a whirlwind two years filled with writing, struggles, growth and a search for some balance in my life.

One thing I have learned: Variety really is the spice of life. In the interest of my writer’s sanity, I can’t keep writing the same type of books over and over. To that end, I have a southern fiction proposal I want to polish for my agent. I have a futuristic I want to finish writing because my agent is currently shopping it. I have a contemporary western series I want to go back and rework and see if I can sell to New York, and I want to write some more shorts for Cobblestone’s Wicked line. All things I can’t do when I’m under contract (and, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m not a fast writer: I have a full-time dayjob and I’m a single mom with two kids, three cats, a puppy, and a house).

But before I take that much-anticipated break, I have a book to finish.

The first three chapters of NAILED are here. And just for fun, I’ll share a snippet from my current work in progress, since it’s the follow-up to NAILED.

“You ran off my bodyguard.” Tish propped her hands on her hips, his wig dangling from her fingers.

“Sorry?” he offered up lamely. He wanted the wig and wanted away from her.

“Sorry...my ass! You’re going to take his place.”

“What?”

She gave him a deadpan look that made his insides shrivel. “Or I call my dad.”

“I have to—“

She snatched her cell phone off the bed and wiggled it at him, a sly grin on her face.

“You’re shitting me.” His shoulders slumped. She had him. She knew it and so did he.

“Never would I shit you,” she drawled. And she looked serious too.

He had to give it one last try. “I really need—“

“I’ll do it. I bet Daddy will be thrilled to know you’re still after Mark.”

Not near as thrilled as John’s dad. The only reason Mark was still alive was because Tish’s brother, Jim, had stepped in and saved his sorry ass before John could finish the job.

“Aren’t you a little old for a bodyguard?”

“No!” Her brows drew together slightly as she morphed from indignant to concerned in seconds. “How old do I look?”

“Old...enough.” Please drop it, please God, let her drop it.

“How old?”

“Old...e-enough.” He nodded for good measure. Drop it, Tish. Drop it now.

“Specifically...” One of her pretty little eyebrows arched.

Shit. “Twenty...” six, seven, and eight clicked off in his head but, “--Thirty,” came out of his mouth.

She gasped, her upper lip curling in horror.

“-ish,” he added hopefully. “Thirty-ish.”

“I’m twenty-seven, and in case you didn’t get the memo, my father’s a powerful man.”

“I know who your father is.” John nodded wondering what the point was.

“He has enemies.”

“I can imagine.”

“Which is why you are going to take Mark’s place. Uh uh--” She waggled a finger at him before he could tell her no. “I don’t go anywhere without a bodyguard. And my best friend is getting married, so for the next four days you will be my bodyguard. Comprende?”

“Com—“ he nodded glumly, “-yeah. Just—“

“What?”

“Nothing.” Don’t ask me if your ass looks fat because I can’t lie. Not that Tish’s ass looked fat. She actually had a really nice heart-shaped ass that made him think things that could get him killed, but the last girl he’d shared his little “No Lying” problem with had tortured him with questions about her ass, her clothes, her friends, her job, anything she could think of...then dumped him when the fun had worn off.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” She held his wig out to him, letting it dangle from her fingertips. “Go get your stuff.”

He snatched the wig from her hands, turning and using the mirror to, once again, get it on straight. “There’s no reason—“

“There’s every reason. And since you ran my escort off, you just became my boyfriend.”

“What?” he shouted.

“You heard me.” She settled her hands on her hips again. “By the way, what’s your name?”

Fucked? “John...John Collier.”

YOUR TURN:Now, I’m going to open up the floor to questions. Ask me anything. But I’m also going to ask you a few…if you’ve sold, how has your life changed? If you haven’t sold to New York, what do you think will change, what do you look forward to?

Interview with Publisher and Writer Deanna Lee

Today, it's the Mavens' pleasure to introduce Deanna Lee, multi-published author of numerous books, including The Penetration Diaries (is that a killer title or what?), Undressing Mercy, and Barenaked Jane, and co-founder/owner with fellow author Sable Grey of Cobblestone Press.

We invited Deanna to guest with us today because Cobblestone has become since its inception as much a community of writers as a publishing house. As writers themselves, Deanna and Sable bring a unique perspective to their role as publishers and the community their efforts have inspired is certainly an outgrowth of that perspective.

Before we turn to the subject of the writers' community that's grown up around Cobblestone Press, could you tell us why you decided to start an epublishing house in the first place and give us a bit of Cobblestone's history for those of our readers who aren't familiar with you?

Sable and I came to the idea of Cobblestone one night during a very long conversation about ePublishing. We had very firm thoughts on what an author-friendly publisher should be and we knew that could create that kind of environment. We started researching the market, publishing, and went to work immediately on a five year business plan. We founded in January of 2006 and opened with our first six books in June of 2006. We’ll be exploring print in the next year or so on a small scale, as we believe firmly in planning well and executing ideas with precision. Anything else would be a disservicee to the authors we are honored to publish.

Cobblestone's online forum and weekly release chats have fostered a strong community of writers at various stages in their careers. Was that intentional or a happy accident?

It was certainly what we wanted! I love other writers and it’s nice to have a place to go online where you can share writing news and find others to challenge you to improve. The weekly chat is our way of connecting with both authors and readers regularly. At Cobblestone we have a very transparent communication process because we believe it to be important. We utilize forums, Yahoo groups, and blogs in an effort to keep everyone on the same page and in the game. I think it works very well.

One of the things many writers struggle with is balancing their writing time between garnering advice and support (often through online communities) and actually writing. How do you manage this and what do you think is an appropriate balance to strike?

I don’t sleep. It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you live on espresso shots and ambition. Okay, so seriously I think the friend of any writer is a schedule that you can follow. It does absolutely no good to set up a schedule you know you won’t follow or make a word count goal you know you can’t meet. Challenging yourself is good, but setting realistic goals will prevent you from becoming discouraged quickly.

What kinds of experiences did you have with RWA chapters and writing communities before Cobblestone?

I am a member of the RWA, but I joined after I was published. I’ve belonged to writing communities in the past (good and bad) and on the whole I recommend them to writers at every level. Writing is a very solitary craft and it’s easy to isolate yourself. Isolation isn’t healthy for the creative soul, no matter how much you might think so. We need intellectual stimulation and other writers can provide that in spades!

What advice do you have for writers seeking online or live communities to participate in? Are there certain things writers should or shouldn't do in a forum environment?

I do caution against overly social writing groups. You want a proactive WORKING group—not a place where people exchange recipes and complain about their spouses/jobs all the time. Granted, those places can be a great deal of fun but they aren’t productive and often they can draw you into drama that leaves you mentally and emotionally exhausted. A writing community should be a place where you recharge your batteries, not be a source of constant drainage.

While it hardly needs to be said, I also caution everyone against bad behavior in forums. The news of bad acts travel four times faster than the news of good deeds. Our writing world is rather small. If something negative gets posted about me on a forum that I don’t belong to, you can bet I’ll get 10 copies of the post in my email from various people within the hour of the posting. No forum or news group is truly private. So, please don’t put anything in writing you don’t want the world to know.

How do you feel about the practice of writers posting their works-in-progress to an online forum? Good idea/bad idea?

Critique groups can be an invaluable resource as long as the members trust each other and participate equally. I don’t recommend posting your work on a public forum because it can be viewed as a form of self-publication. If you are going to critique on a forum or group, make sure that it’s only available to members and don’t leave your work up there indefinitely. One of the best online sites for this is: http://www.critiquecircle.com/ , but I recommend you go there with body armor on. Those writers can and will be hard core when it comes to critique.

Is there anything else you'd like our readers to know about Cobblestone Press?

Beyond how absolutely fabulous we are? Well, on November 10th, Karen Wiesner will be joining us for a day long Q&A session about her book “First Draft in 30 Days” –you only have to be a member of Main Street to participate. http://www.cobblestone-mainstreet.com/.

In January we will be holding our second FREE online writing conference. More information on the Words in Motion event can be found here: http://www.cobblestone-mainstreet.com/WIM/index.htm.

YOUR TURN: Deanna will be available today to answer any questions you might have, so please, feel free to comment and ask! Deanna will be giving away a signed copy of Barenaked Jane to one lucky commentator, so post away!

And thanks, again, Deanna, for being with us today!

The Goal Not Sought, But Stumbled Upon

I didn't set out to be epubbed. To be truthful, when I started writing seriously (as opposed to dabbling in it like I'd done for decades) in February of 2005, I didn't even know that ebooks and epublishers existed. I'd never heard of Ellora's Cave, let alone Samhain or LooseId or any of the other epublishers out there (and there are a lot of them). And Cobblestone, which is releasing Carnally Ever After today, hadn't even been founded (they started up in June of 2006).

So, writing a story with the goal of submitting it to epublishers was definitely not on my radar. And when I did first start hearing about ebooks, I admit to thinking, "Ah, that's not really a book. A book is paper and ink and binding, not words on a computer screen." Which, I'm sure, is how a lot of people still feel about ebooks, though in point of fact, the epublishing revolution is in such full swing that most (if not all) of the New York houses now sell all of their titles in both print and ebook formats.

What got me started on the road to being epublished was actually a challenge from Ann Aguirre/Annie Dean, who mentioned on her blog back in January of this year that she was writing a story for an Ellora's Cave call for submissions and asked if anyone wanted to join her in the endeavor. I was at a kind of a lull at that point in my writing, having finished the first draft of what was then called Living in Sin and not really ready to dive into the next book, Lady Libertine. So, I thought, what the heck? It might be fun. And you never know--maybe it'll get picked up.

I wrote Carnally Ever After, which clocks in at just under 15,000 words, in about two weeks. The Mavens and Lady Leigh provided me with invaluable crit support and I feverishly finished up the edits and submitted the story to Ellora's Cave just before the February 1 deadline. And then waited anxiously to find out whether my story would make the cut or not.

The answer was not. I received a very polite emailed rejection letter a few days after I knew the final decisions had been made. Now, I knew there were plenty of reasons they might have rejected the story other than that they thought it wasn't any good, but I was pretty down in the mouth about it because, hey, I thought it was a darned good story. If they didn't like it, maybe nobody would.

And their rejection left me with a dilemma: Here I was with a story all my CPs vowed to adore that I'd written specifically for one epublisher, and that publisher had turned it down. What was I going to do with it now? I toyed with stretching the story to perhaps double its original length to make it appealing to print anthology publishers like Red Sage, but ultimately decided that I'd only be padding and not improving the book in the process.

I hemmed and hawed for a month or so before reaching a conclusion you'll probably think is totally obvious: I had a story I wanted people to read, and no one was going to be reading it while it was taking up space on my hard drive. I wrote a book for epublication and now that I had it, I'd be a fool not to pursue the goal of getting it published.

The rest, as they say, is history. There aren't a lot of epublishers who accept novellas quite as short as Carnally Ever After, which is more of a long short story than a novella, which narrowed the list of options considerably. I started with Harlequin Spice Briefs because, hey, they're Harlequin, but after waiting for several months with no response, I sent it off to Cobblestone Press. I chose Cobblestone not only because their Tryst line is exactly the right length, but because I know several authors who have published with them from FanLit (Sara Dennis and Ericka Scott) and so I had good feelings about the quality of their product.

I clicked send on my email submission and sat back to wait 4-6 weeks to hear back. I got my response in a little under eight hours. To say I was floored would be an understatement. From the time I dotted the i's and crossed the t's on my contract to today, the entire process took a little over two months.

So, how does this post fit into the theme of goals? It probably doesn't, actually. (It was just an excuse to post something on the Mavens blog with a link to buy my book :->.) But maybe it does fit in thematically in one sense. Whatever your attainable, measurable, and achievable writing goals may be, the reason you have them in the first place is because you want what you write to be read.

None of us writes to get rich and famous. It's more that getting rich and famous as a writer is a byproduct of getting read. By lots and lots of people who pay your publisher, and by extension you, for the privilege. But in the end, it's all about the being read, isn't it?

And so, it is with great pleasure that I offer you the opportunity to fulfill my dream and read my first published work, Carnally Ever After.

Update: The link, she is live!

It Rose From The Slush

And by "it", I mean "me".

In case you missed the news on my blog, I am pleased to announce that I now have agent representation! Yay!

Very soon, the sexy tooth fairy book I never shut up about will be making the publisher rounds in NYC, courtesy of Lauren Abramo from the Dystel & Goderich Literary Agency.

OMG! OMG! I can't believe it!

Wait--yes I can, because I worked for this! There was no magic handshake. And I am willing to share the secret formula that got me this far.

STEP 1: Take Writing Seriously

When I decided to change my mindset from "writing is a hobby" to "writing is a career", I did several things. First, I made up a rule that said "No more abandoning unfinished stories". If I were a painter, would I get very far with half-finished paintings? Unlikely. Second, I joined Romance Writers of America and my local chapter, Tampa Area Romance Authors and became an active member of both.

STEP 2: Improve Thyself

Now that I was finishing what I started and learning all about the stuff I didn't even realize I didn't know, I discovered I had a long way to go. So, I went to conferences, attended workshops, read books on craft, did online courses, surfed internet articles, and hunted down brutally honest critique partners. I tried at least half the advice I got, and kept what worked and tossed what didn't.

STEP 3: Write

I wrote like crazy. Between fall of 2005 when I first decided to pursue writing as a career and spring of 2007, I wrote four complete novels. I also did a lot of reading and did a lot of critiquing, both of which helped immensely. Time spent analyzing other stories--published or not--is time well spent. But time spent writing is the best of all. You can't be a writer if you don't write!

STEP 4: Write Something Good

I can admit it--my first stuff wasn't so good. Nor did it completely suck. Eventually I began finalling in contests and getting "positive" (ie "send us something else") rejection letters from material requested at writers conferences. But confining yourself to conference pitches is extremely limiting, which brings us to:

STEP 5: Craft A Good Query Letter

I mean, a real good one. And then send it out. Not to just anyone! Do your research. Pick reputable agencies with agents you respect, who represent your genre and love to read your type of story. I actually had a very short A List--less than a dozen names. Your mileage may vary. But it's best for everyone involved if you only query someone whom you'd want to represent your work.

STEP 6: Be Ready to Send the Material

How many times do agents request stuff that never ends up crossing their desks? Do not be that person if you really want to get to the next stage! I sent Lauren part of Trevor & the Tooth Fairy. A couple weeks went by. She asked for the full. I shipped it out Priority Mail that very afternoon.

STEP 7: Make A Good Decision

Trevor & the Tooth Fairy was actually out with four different agents, all of whom were reputable, from well-respected agencies, who had recent sales and multiple clients, and who were at the top of my A List. Some had spoken to me several times about the project over the past few months. The number one thing that made Lauren stand out to me was her enthusiasm for the project. She loves TATTF! How can I not love someone who loves TATTF! *g. Seriously, though, that enthusiasm will shine through. Who would you rather represent you--someone who thinks your work is okay, or someone who thinks your story is tops?

STEP 8: Let the Agent Do Her Job

This is the easiest and hardest step. The excruciating hurry-up-and-wait game we writers face does not stop just because you've signed an agent contract. But remember, your agent is in the same boat! She is gunning for you at all the publishing houses, but she's also got to back off and give them a chance to read your brilliant masterpiece. This is a slow-moving industry. Might as well make peace with that up front.

So, does all this mean I'm on my merry way to being the next Danielle Steele meets J.K. Rowling? Uh, no.

Agent representation isn't a guarantee of publication. Actually, pretty much nothing is--I've known people with publisher contracts and advance money in hand whose book never made it to the shelf due to lines/houses closing or editors leaving, etc.

But it is one step closer, and it's a step I'm very, very, very excited about.

Okay, I've held it in for the whole entire post...

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!