Getting the Call: Jennie Bates Bozic

Here's a dose of inspiration just in time for Thanksgiving. I'm sure this author is very thankful to be handled by a great agent. Welcome to the latest success story from another AQC regular, Jennie Bates Bozic. She has just recently got the call and is now on submission for her novel, Damselfly. Good luck and best wishes!  

My “Getting the Call” story is different than most because, to those who don’t know my full story, it probably looks like everything worked out for me in record time.  But it’s true that every overnight success is ten years in the making.  In my case, it was eleven.

I began working on my first novel during my sophomore year of college in 2001.  I had no idea what I was doing, but I did know that the world coming together in my head wouldn’t let me go.  For the next nine years, I worked on it from time to time, but would give up in frustration.  I had no idea how to write a novel and I didn’t have the self-discipline to really go after my dream.  But I still wrote in pieces.  I jotted down pages worth of notes.  I shared my scraps with friends and their responses encouraged me to keep trying.  I bought lots of books on writing and storytelling and spent hours wandering around bookstores, trying to get inspired.

After dozens of false starts, I set that book aside and tried a different one.  That went a little more smoothly… until the hard drive of my computer died and I wasn’t able to retrieve my work.  It was gone forever and all I had left were the chapters I had emailed to friends. 

Two years ago, I got married and my husband got fed up with me constantly complaining about how much I wanted to be a writer.  “Why don’t you actually write then instead of talking about it?”

I was mad at him for about an hour, and then the truth of his words sunk in.  So I started writing.  I went back to my first book and cranked out a rough draft.  I took a class in writing for children and young adults.  A year later, I had an extremely rough draft and a terrible query letter. 

I really wanted to make sure everything was completely ready before I sent my first query letter, so I started revising.  As I chopped and sliced and rewrote, the sad realization that my writing reach exceeded my grasp settled down on me.  My skill still wasn’t at the level it needed to be.

I knew at that point that it would be all too easy to give in to frustration and self-pity.  I had worked SO hard, often getting in my daily thousand words even if I’d worked twelve hours that day, and it still wasn’t enough.  But feeling sorry for myself wasn’t going to get me any closer to my goal of being a professional author. 

So I sat down and thought long and hard about the kind of story I could write next and I came up with Damselfly.  I wrote the query first and ran it by several people to see if it sounded appealing.  The feedback was encouraging, so I poured myself into writing that novel.  Seven months later, it was finished and I sent out my first queries.

To my great surprise, the first response I got from an agent was not a rejection – it was a full request.  Three weeks and two more full requests later, I woke up one morning and checked my email.  There was an email from one of the agents who was reading my novel.  My heart sank and I opened it. 

And then I screamed.  My husband came running in from the other room, convinced I was dying because I am so NOT a screamer.  All I could do was babble incoherently and hold up the phone so he could read the email himself.

Steven Axelrod wanted me to call him at my convenience to discuss representation. 

It took me a couple of hours to work up my courage, mostly because phone calls with anyone other than family and close friends make me incredibly nervous, which was why I had not included my phone number in my queries. He offered representation right away and then we spent some time discussing what that would mean.  I asked most of my questions, but in my nervousness I forgot about half of them.  Then I told him I would get back to him in about a week because I needed to let the other agents know.

And thus began the longest week of my life.  Eight days later, after an extended deadline due to Hurricane Sandy, I was thrilled to accept Steve’s offer.  I couldn’t be happier and I can’t imagine a better agent for my book and my career.

Hopefully I’ll be getting another call soon – this time with the news that my book has sold!

-----------------------

Bio: Jennie Bates Bozic’s first "book" was a short kid's story about a brother and a sister who are sent to Saturn as astronauts and meet an alien named Kleppy. Bestseller material there, I tell you! She has a BA in Religion and Philosophy from Hillsdale College and a diploma in 3D Animation in Visual Effects from Lost Boys Learning. She has spent the last four years creating visual effects for film and television. If you've watched shows such as The Walking Dead, Grey's Anatomy, The Event, Heroes or Greek, chances are that you've seen some of her work. She is married to a wonderful man that she met in the World of Warcraft and they live in Los Angeles with their two cats.

Jennie's website - http://www.jenniebatesbozic.com/

Getting the Call: Lynda Williams

Today I'm happy to bring you an author who actually wrote a short about the despair she felt trying to break into publishing. Now she has not one, but seven books published. That's quite an accomplishment. Here's proof that it can be done and there is a market for a well-developed fantasy series. Welcome to Lynda Williams.

Michelle, I would love to share my "Getting the Call" story with you and your readers and to include the link to my story Going Back Out which I wrote when I was feeling despair about ever being a real writer because I couldn't see how I'd ever compete with the "big guys". The writer-analogy is about Gadar, a Reetion pilot who is depressed to discover Sevolites really do fly harder than she can. But, as Ann reminds her, they don't fly for her reasons and the people she flies for need HER. When you focus on what you are doing, and why, then fears about how loudly you can do it fade away.

Easier said than done, of course, but I have often re-read Going Back Out myself, particularly when I felt angry about some very loud success that jarred me emotionally for the sake of the implied messages about immoral behavior being okay so long as you win. My own "Getting the Call" message has to be when Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy bought Throne Price. I had sold a couple short stories before but the Okal Rel Saga was my big dream. Alison Sinclair and I sold Throne Price to Edge late in the last millenium. At the time, the "buzz" in the writerly world was all in favor of "shorter, meaner, harder", or at least so it seemed to me. A ten novel saga about the struggle to find the common sense to stop destroying the world, and brutalizing people, in the fight between cultures for dominance, felt like a dark horse. But I had lived and labored in the Okal Rel Universe for thirty years. I wasn't interested in doing "something else". 


Now, a mere 30,000 words shy of completing a ten-novel project, with Part 8: Gathering Storm due soon, I am glad I had the courage to keep flying for my own reasons. And this is what really makes it worthwhile -- so are the readers who love my characters.

Lynda Williams, author http://www.okalrel.org/books.html http://okalrel.org/blog/ (Reality Skimming with Michelle Carraway, Tegan Lott,Richard Bartrop)http://clarionfoundation.wordpress.com/tag/lynda-williams/ (with David Lott)Opus 6 (with editor Paula Johanson)

Getting the Call: MarcyKate Connolly

Believing in ourselves can be the hardest part of being a writer. The lack of validation from legitimate sources can be a killer. I got a chance to read a couple of chapters of MarcyKate's Monstrous and the voice blew me away. She may not have know it, but I think everyone else knew this book stood out from the crowd. Once again, you have to keep up your courage because it's persistence and talent that pays off. I want to wish MarcyKate the best of luck with her submission process. I'm doing a happy dance for her, too!

First, thanks so much for inviting me to do this guest post, Michelle!

Like many other writers, I’ve spent several years in the query trenches, writing, re-writing, and submitting, all in the hopes of finding that one agent who loves my work. I’ve had more than my share of highs and lows. The 3^rd novel I queried came particularly close, garnering a large amount of requests, but in the end, no offers. So when it came time to query MONSTROUS (my 7^th book, but 4^th I’d decided to query), I had reached a point where I was paralyzed by fear.

I was absolutely (and foolishly) terrified to send out this book. I was scared to send it to my crit partners. Then once they approved, I was afraid to send it to agents. I was even nervous to enter it into blog contests (which normally I love to do!). MONSTROUS is hands down the weirdest and most challenging book I’ve written to date and I was very emotionally invested in it. The thought of it coming close and not being good enough to get an agent yet again stalled my forward momentum, despite my full awareness that I was being a complete ninny.

Then came the Writers Voice Contest in May (hosted by the lovely foursome of Brenda Drake, Cupid, Krista Van Dolzer, and Monica BW). I got up the nerve to enter and was shocked and thrilled that 3 of the judges wanted my weird little book to be on their team. By the time the contest ended and the agents had voted, I had several requests for MONSTROUS.

This was exactly the push I needed to start sending out queries. I began researching agents on my list who I thought would be a good fit with renewed gusto, but still held back a little. I queried in fits and starts and only when I was in a Go Big or Go Home frame of mind. I’d send them out late at night before I could think better of it and usually woke up the next morning thinking I was crazy to have done that. This was not my normal querying process by any means! Usually I’d send out 5-10 at a time to a range of agents so I didn’t burn through my top picks before perfecting my query. But this time, I felt confident my query and first pages were good (it was just the rest of the book I worried about!) and I ended up querying only my A-list. I was blown away by the response – I only sent out 20 queries, but my request rate was about 70%. Including the ones from contests, I had 18 requests for MONSTROUS.

But, of course, I was still getting rejections – it’s inevitable. About 6 weeks after I sent out the first batch of queries, I got an email response from an agent as I was walking home from the train station. I nearly fell over when I saw the preview of the message on my phone read “Would you be available to chat this week?” I kept telling myself she probably wanted major revisions and that she wasn’t calling to offer. But it was an offer! And she was lovely and she was excited about my book and I was pretty much on cloud nine! After I talked to Agent #1, I nudged everyone else reading my book (8 at the time) and all the outstanding queries (another 5 or so). A couple got back to me bowing out, others with requests.

One of those requests happened to be from a particular agent who I’d long considered to be someone I’d give my right arm to work with, so I was over the moon that she wanted to read MONSTROUS! I sent the manuscript off right away and she got back to me later that night to let me know how much she was enjoying it so far. She finished reading within 24 hours and emailed again, gushing about my book (!), to arrange a phone call.

That was about the time my head exploded.

Fortunately, I managed to pull myself together for our call a couple days later! Agent #2’s enthusiasm for her work, her clients’ books, and MY book completely blew me away. Add to that the fact that her suggestions for revisions were spot on and she was easy to talk to, and I had a feeling she was going to be the right agent for me.

The happy dancing officially reached epic levels (to the point where the excessive flailing was scaring my dogs)!

But I still had several agents reading and wanted to be sure I gave everyone who was interested serious consideration. You really don’t know how you’ll click with an agent until you talk to them. Out of those agents, I received another offer and had another Call with Agent #3. She was as excited about MONSTROUS as the other agents, her clients loved her just as much, and her sales record was stellar. She was even easy to talk to. I could tell she’d be a great advocate for my book.

Then came the hard part – I had to make a decision. All three agents were awesome. I felt certain they’d all work hard to sell MONSTROUS and they were all interested in helping me build a career. It was both wonderful and terrible because I’d have to say no to two of them and there’s nothing I like less than disappointing people (especially nice, awesome people).

But when it came right down to it, I kept coming back to Agent #2. I felt like we really clicked over email and the phone, and she’d made a point of keeping in contact over the course of that week. Not only did I like her ideas for revision just a little more than the others, but her level of enthusiasm was higher and I believed that would translate over during the submission process to editors. When I finally emailed Suzie Townsend to tell her I was delighted to officially accept her offer of representation, part of me was terrified it was all just a dream and she’d email back “Just kidding!”  Fortunately, that was NOT the case J We’ve been working together for the past few weeks preparing to go out on submission and she’s been absolutely fantastic!  

BIO: MarcyKate Connolly is a writer and arts administrator who lives in New England with her husband and pugs. She’s also a coffee addict, voracious reader, and recurring commuter. She blogs at her website and the From the Write Angle group blog, and volunteers as a moderator at AgentQueryConnect.com. Her work is represented by Suzie Townsend of New Leaf Literary & Media. Her short story “Connected” was recently published in the Spring Fevers anthology by Elephants Bookshelf Press.

LINKS:

• Website
• Twitter: @marcykate
• Goodreads
• AQConnect

Getting the Call: Suzanne van Rooyen

This week's author has a ton on her plate. Suzanne has broken into writing by heading in more than one direction, providing more proof that a boatload of talent with determination and perseverance are the key. Very cool cover, Suzanne, and a big congrats on the agent offer! I hope you'll come back again and share more details for the December release.

My journey to publication has been a bit of a whirlwind. I've always written, but never really thought of being a writer in terms of career. It was only in 2010 when I began writing Dragon's Teeth that I had any inclination of trying to publish.

What started out as a short story grew into a novel for NaNoWriMo 2010 and after another two months of daily writing, became Dragon's Teeth. I submitted my manuscript on a whim to Divertir Publishing, wanting to take the first step towards being a real writer. I expected a rejection, I hoped for some feedback, I never ever expected a publishing contract.

My almost year long journey from signing the contract to seeing my book in print taught me so much about the writing industry and about myself as I writer. I owe a huge amount of thanks to Elizabeth Harvey (my editor) and Ken Tupper (publisher) for investing in my story. It was the publication of Dragon's Teeth that made me realise that what I really wanted to be was a writer, because that's who I've always been: a storyteller.

In the wake of Dragon's Teeth, I joined the online writing community Scribophile where I continued to learn about writing as a craft and about the industry. I started following author and agent blogs, I discovered Duotrope and the world of writing no longer seemed like a magical, far away realm but something real that I could be a part of. In the past year, I've had fifteen short stories published and have gradually been stepping up the ladder towards pro paying markets.

I've also been writing, a lot! Being a musician, I understand the importance of practice; the dedication, discipline and perseverance it takes to perfect an art. I write every day, even if I only manage a couple hundred words.

After Dragon's Teeth, I wrote two other novels. Obscura Burning pretty much wrote itself in a lightning bolt of inspiration that had me abandon everything else for the two weeks it took to write out the first draft. A YA science fiction novel, Obscura Burning is about a troubled boy who finds himself tossed along the space-time continuum in the wake of tragedy. I queried agents for this novel but the feedback, while consistently positive, made me realise that my very dark and edgy novel was going to be a tricky sell for traditional publishing. I turned instead to indie publishers and within a few weeks had an offer of publication from Etopia Press. Obscura Burning is now tentatively scheduled for release December 7. 

The other novel was Daughter of the Nether, a YA mythpunk story set in a post-apocalyptic world. I entered this manuscript into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award earlier this year and never expected to end up a semi-finalist. My journey with this novel is far from over but after four months of consistent querying, I just had an offer of representation! My head's still spinning about that!

Putting my journey into a few paragraphs, makes it all sound fairly easy, but it definitely was not. The hours spent writing, the hours spent curled up in a ball of self-doubt as the rejections rolled in, the hours spent editing, revising, staring at a blank page – writing really isn't for the faint of heart, but determination and patience can pay off. It was Einstein who said, “Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work.” And any writer can attest to that!

Bio: Suzanne van Rooyen is a South African speculative fiction author currently residing in the snowy wastes of Finland. She is the author of Dragon's Teeth (Divertir Publishing, 2011) and Obscura Burning (Etopia Press, December 2012). Her short fiction has appeared in Golden Visions Magazine, Earthbound Fiction, Niteblade and several others. Although she has a Master's degree in music, she prefers writing strange tales and conjuring weird worlds, and playing in the snow with her shiba inu.

Links:

Website: http://suzannevanrooyen.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Suzanne-van-Rooyen/304965232847874

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5306442.Suzanne_van_Rooyen

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Suzanne_Writer

Getting the Call: Robert Lewis

This story gave me chills, though I can't believe he did it without beta readers. There's talent! I'm glad to welcome Robert Lewis--our first male guest Yay!-- as he shares his story. I also met Robert through Agent Query Connect. (The place to be if you write, people. Go there.) You know him there as ThrownBones. His novel, Untold Damage, releases April of 2013. I  hope he'll come back for a release party.

The Call.

            It’s actually really funny, because after over a decade of working towards getting an agent, I never really got “The Call”. I got “The Email”. My wife got “The Call”, as it came to our home in the middle of the day while I was at work. She happened to be home because she was recouping from rotator cuff surgery.

            Let me give you a little bit of history before I continue…

            Previous to the thriller that landed me my fabulous agent, Barbara Poelle, I had written an urban fantasy novel. I’d shopped it EVERYWHERE I possibly could. I literally queried like two hundred and fifty agents. Yes, you read that correctly. Only received a few requests for partials, maybe one full. All for nothing.

            About halfway through those agents, I realized I would need another book.

One day I was sitting at my desk wondering what that book would be. On the corkboard I have above my desk were two pieces of writing. One was a short story I’d placed in an online literary journal. This story was about a junkie shooting up in a confessional and it was called Needle Priest. It was my personal favorite. The other was a bit of flash fiction from the POV of a child killer as he fed his latest victim before killing her. That one was called Little Visitor. It was up there because it was THE ONLY piece of writing that I’d ever done that my wife felt had that magic “something”. I was literally sitting there looking from one to the other… junkie… child killer… junkie… child killer… junkie GOES AFTER A CHILD KILLER!

But how can I make that happen, right?

            Because he was an ex-cop.

And so Mark Mallen was born. Out of sheer desperation. After that, the book came pretty quickly. I never showed the book to anyone, really. No one ever read the drafts. I workshopped the opening chapter one time. Other than that, the only people to ever read the novel were the agents who had requested partials or fulls. And no, I do NOT recommend you do it that way. I felt I could do it because by that time I’d been writing long enough (over ten years) to feel confident enough in my inner critic. And also? Honestly? I felt in my gut that THIS one was going to be “The One”, the book that got me an agent.

            Anyway, once I was done, I went over to one of the greatest websites around for writers, Agent Query. The agent database on that site was invaluable to me. I worked like a dog on the query, and even took the plunge and used an outside editor to look it over and help me with it. I ended up using The Editorial Department. They were fantastic. It wasn’t cheap, but I really wanted to get this one right.

I started sending out queries in January 2009. I sent Barbara an email query on February 28^th, along with a partial of the first thirty pages. Barbara was on my “A” list because when I was researching her, I found a LOT that I loved. She didn’t mind turning a “maybe” into a “yes” and this worked for me as I felt that if I didn’t have a “yes” of a book on my hands, I sure as shit had a “maybe”. I also read that she had told one prospective client that she would get into a monkey knife fight to represent that client’s book. How could you NOT love her, right?

By this point, mid-March or so, I had a handful of fulls out. I nudged Barbara via email on April 30^th, using the original email so if she needed to, she could reference back to our conversation easily. And by nudge, I mean politely nudge. These are very busy people, with a stable of clients, a barn-full of manuscripts, and a warehouse of queries to read. I gave her eight weeks or so, then nudged. She emailed back that very day, thanking me for nudging her and at that time requested the full. I sent it off, feeling like this was going to maybe be good.

            May 15^th , the day it happened, was graduation day in the college department where I work. It’s literally the busiest day of the year, hands down. I was running around like a mad dog. Got a chance to check email once. I think it was sometime in the early afternoon. There was an email from Barbara, saying she’d just called her husband to cancel their dinner plans as she was loving the hell outta the book and that she would call me when she was done. Well, you can imagine how THAT made me feel, right? I gave her a very enthusiastic, though professional, response telling her that I was happy to hear she was enjoying the book, and that I was looking forward to chatting. About an hour later, as I was exiting the building to where I work to set up the champagne and food for the graduating students and their parents, my cell rings. It’s home calling. I answer, thinking that my wife needs me to pick up something on the way home to help alleviate the agony she was enduring after her operation.

            “Hey,” I said.

            “You have an agent,” she replied.

            And you know what? I almost cried, right then and there. Seriously. I mean… I’d been looking for an agent for well over thirteen years if you add in the years I’d spent writing screenplays. I’d been writing six days a week, on average forty-nine weeks a year in all that time.

Yes, I had to fight back the tears.

My wife then told me that Barbara had chatted her up a bit, and that I should check my email, which I immediately did. And there was “The Email”. I now have that email pinned to the corkboard over my desk, and have ever since that day.

That was May, 2009. It took us another 2.5 years until I got my two-book deal. And the book that landed me my agent wasn’t even the book that sold! I had to write two MORE books before we got to one that did it. One thing to always remember: a really good agent believes in you and your talent, not just the book. They want to help build your career.

One last thing: you have to play the long game here. Just assume it’s going to take a long time. That way if it doesn’t, then cool beans and you’re happily surprised. And if it does take a long time? Well, then you’ve already been prepared for that eventuality.

            My story is, if anything, a really a good example of never giving up, never giving in. And if it can happen for me, a guy who was dyslexic as a child and dropped out of high school mid-way through his second year, it can happen for anyone.

            Happy writing!

Robert Lewis is represented by Barbara Poelle of the Irene Goodman Agency. The first novel of his Mark Mallen series, titled Untold Damage, arrives 04.08.13 via Midnight Ink. 

Getting the Call: Ruth Cardello

This fantastic lady’s success story makes me truly envious. Who wouldn’t love to have writing be their full time job? It certainly proves that in this day and age there are so many ways to achieve the dream. Be sure to check out Ruth Cardello’s One Month Promotional Challenge at AQC, where she shares tips on getting yourself and your work out there. It's really worth a look.

A little over a year ago, I had just about given up that my book, Maid for the Billionaire, would ever find a home.  I had written it as a category romance, but the lines I had written it for passed on it.  Each pass said about the same thing, “Good writing, but it’s not what we are looking for right now.  Do you have anything else?”

Maid for the Billionaire was the first book in a series I intended to write, but when it wasn’t selling – I wasn’t sure if I should continue the series or start a new one.

A self-published author came to our local romance writer’s group and discussed how her rejections had been the best thing that could have happened to her.  After hearing her story, I thought – why not?  It’s free and might provide me with the feedback I needed from readers. 

I put my first book up for free and held my breath.

I never dreamed that it would be as well received as it has been or that self-publishing would bring so many wonderful people into my life.  Within months, over 200,000 people had downloaded it and my reviews were mostly positive – creating a good base of readers for the release of my second book.

Self-published authors don’t get “the call.”  We don’t usually have agents or contracts.  It’s difficult to feel published -- difficult to know when to celebrate.  For me, the moment I celebrate is when my second book cleared $100,000 in the first six months. 

After some soul searching, I finally left my day job to write full-time.  My third book, Bedding the Billionaire, is expected to be released mid-July.  The best part of writing full-time? More time with my children. I write every day from 8-3 then I close my laptop and am simply MOM.   No more waking up at 5 am to write before the kids wake up.  No more sacrificing my own sleep to find time to write after everyone has gone to bed.  Weekends are time for family, friends and relaxing again.  I couldn’t be happier.

There is an ongoing debate in many circles regarding the best route to publication.  The only thing I’m sure of is that change is ongoing and inevitable.  What this will all look like a year from now, five years from now – I have no idea, but I pray I’m still a part of it.

You can find more about Ruth Cardello at her website or at Facebook under Author Ruth Cardello.  Check out this link to find her on Amazon.

Getting the Call: Mindy McGinnis

You might know this writer as the moderator Big Black Cat from AQC. Not only does Mindy McGinnis have an amazing debut YA novel coming out in 2013, but she … wait for it … critiques query letters on her blog! I can’t think of a better way to help fellow writers and pay forward the success she richly earned.  Thanks for sharing your story, Mindy.

I started querying when SASE was a byword in the querying world, and a hopeful writer set aside part of their income to pay for postage. So when I got an email from Adriann Ranta of Wolf Literary looking for a good time to schedule The Call, it was truly a surreal moment. 

As a long-time member and newly minted moderator of the AgentQuery Connect forum, I knew exactly where to get my information to prepare for the call. I had my laptop fired up and my browser on this thread, my questions at the ready. It's as indispensable as oxygen when that moment comes for the aspiring writer.

My palms were sweaty and I think the butterflies in my stomach had butterflies in their stomachs when Adriann answered the phone. She talked first, telling me how much she lovedNOT A DROP TO DRINK, which I lapped up like a kitten in a swimming pool filled with cream. After that, she told me a little about the background of her agency, and what they had to offer me.

Then it was my turn, and I ticked off the questions. What changes, if any, did she foresee for DRINK? What houses did she think it would fit in best, and what was her approach as an agent to them? What was her revision process like, and how heavy-handed or light on the reins was she in it? 

Adriann had all the right answers, and after we'd exchanged the business side of things we had a little side-talk about how great The X Files was in its heydey, and what books we were reading at the moment. Even though I had another offer of representation, I knew right away that Adriann was the one for me.

Hey, she likes the X Files.

Bio: Mindy McGinnis is a YA librarian and writer repped by Adriann Ranta of Wolf Literary. Her debut YA novel, NOT A DROP TO DRINK will be available from Katherine Tegen/ Harper Collins, Fall 2013. Mindy blogs at Writer, Writer Pants on Fire, and serves as a moderator on the writing forum AgentQuery Connect. She also contributes to the group blogs From the Write Angle, The Lucky 13s, Book Pregnant and Friday the Thirteeners.

Getting the Call: S. K. Keogh

A book cover recently knocked my socks off. So much so, that I bought the book for my kindle without reading a word of it first. Now half way through this action packed story of pirates and revenge, I’m so glad I did. I love a nautical adventure, especially if it has romance. I knew I had to ask S.K. Keogh to the blog even though we write in different genres. Her rousing story will inspire everyone. Thank you, Susan, for traveling here to share your story. 

When Michelle invited me to write an article on how I landed my first book deal and the journey I took to get there, it surprised me to realize that nearly nine years have gone by since I first sat down to write my historical adventure novel, The Prodigal. Of course, I've been a writer for much, much longer than that.

Like many writers, I began writing when I was just a kid, dabbling in such things as Young Adult and Westerns (yep, Westerns). My first publishing credit came about from research I had done while writing a Civil War novel. I submitted a short article to the national magazine America's Civil War, and was pleasantly surprised when they wrote back to say they liked the article so much that they wanted me to expand it so they could use it as a feature article. (I recently reprinted the article on my blog, in a four-part series: http://susankeogh.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/prelude-to-chickamauga/ )

I had hoped that the article would help me find a publisher for my Civil War novel, but, alas, it did not (I recently started reworking that manuscript). Having no success with that manuscript, I actually drifted away from writing for three years, being heavily involved in other interests. Sometimes I wondered if I would ever be inspired enough to write again.

Then along came the Disney movie "Pirates of the Caribbean" in 2003. That movie piqued my interest in that era in general and pirates in particular, so I began reading whatever I could find on the subject, and it was during that time that I came up with the idea for The Prodigal. I wanted to write a plot-driven, quick-read adventure, something relatively short (less than 90,000 words by the time it was ready for publication). The small word count was strategic because I figured a publisher would be more apt to take on a debut author with a cheaper-to-produce word count than a debut author with some massive epic. 

So lots of research and five drafts later, I had the finished product, perhaps two or three years' worth of work. I can't remember for sure. Even when it was "finished", I still revisited the manuscript often to read it with fresh eyes and tweak it some more (I'm notorious for that). I marketed it a bit with agents, then small presses. One publishing house had it for a year but ultimately passed on it. I continued on during that time with writing what I hoped would be a sequel then a trilogy.

During a more recent search for an agent, I was contacted by an agent who had been an assistant at one of the agencies that had read a full of my manuscript. She was opening her own agency and wanted to take me on. Since I had no one else interested in me or the novel at the time I figured what the heck and signed with her. During our one-year relationship, she shopped it around to some of the bigger houses like Random House, etc. but had no luck selling it. 

A fellow writer, whom I met on a historical fiction website, (Jim "Alaric" Bond) contacted me directly and invited me to submit my work to his editor at Fireship Press. I did so and notified my agent of the contact, encouraging her to touch base with them. However, I never heard back from the editor, and my agent claimed he had not responded to her inquiries. A short time later, that gentleman unexpectedly passed away. So I figured that was that. However, Jim contacted me after having met the new president of Fireship Press and again encouraged me to submit, saying that the new president (Michael James) didn't find any record of my previous submission or any contact from my agent.

This was toward the end of my contract with my agent. After submitting The Prodigal to Michael James, I tried to contact my agent to let her know, but oddly enough she had vanished off the face of the earth after the birth of her first child. I tried contacting her by email (bounced back), telephone (straight to voice mail with no return call), and certified mail (that letter eventually came back, unclaimed). It was a big mystery. Meanwhile, Fireship had contacted me for sample chapters then a full. Since my contract with my agent had by then expired, I officially terminated our relationship. Shortly thereafter, Fireship offered me a one-book deal for The Prodigal. 

There are good things and bad things when a writer compares big publishers with small publishers. I will focus on the positive things. With a small, niche publisher like Fireship, my book received immediate attention toward getting it to the finished product. They had actually started editing it before I had even signed the contract (which I had reviewed by a literary lawyer before signing). I had the copy edits back within the first month (fortunately the edits were nothing major, mainly words choices, etc. and a tweaked ending) and the galleys in my hands the following month. By the third month we had a cover chosen and a jacket blurb written. Another positive thing is that I was allowed the majority of say in the cover and the blurb, both things that debut authors at large houses rarely if ever get a say in.

So all told, from contract signing to release, The Prodigal only took three months of production. Compare that to large houses which can take up to a year and a half to produce a book.

So there is my own personal success story. Like many things in life, in my case it was not only what I knew (how to write a good story) but who I knew (Jim Bond). So the moral of this writer's story is network, network, network! You never know who will offer to lend you a helping hand...and you never know who you might be able to help on their way toward publication as well.

If you are interested in The Prodigal, it is available in paperback or e-book through the usual purchasing channels: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+prodigal+by+s.k.+keogh

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/The-prodigal-by-s-k--keogh?keyword=The+prodigal+by+s.k.+keogh&store=allproducts

http://www.fireshippress.com   

Getting the Call: Guest Blogger Angie Sandro

I asked my talented friend and fellow writer, Angie Sandro, to give us a taste of her success.  She graciously wrote a post describing what it was like for her getting the call to be represented by an agent. Angie writes YA paranormal and her manuscript, Juju's Child, is currently on submission to publishers. Please check out Angie's blog for more.

Thank you for inviting me, Michelle. I am honored to be able to share how I found my amazing agent, Kathleen Rushall of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

I happened to be on Joyce Alton’s YESTERNIGHT’S VOYAGE blog in which she listed a new agent who represented young adult. I clicked the link and presto, I was at LOVE YA blog reading Monica’s interview with Kathleen.

Kathleen said,” Topics of particular interest to me include reincarnation, the occult, the supernatural (not in a zombie or vampire context, more psychic, or witchy, or fey), ghosts (a scary ghost story? yes, please), and psychology.” She also disclosed that her guilty pleasures are Vampire Diaries and Gossip Girl.

Hot diggidy dog! Her interests covered the various plots of all five of my manuscripts.

I was so excited. I immediately queried her and received a full request for the manuscript half an hour later. That night we emailed back and forth, and learned we had common interests in books and movies. It felt surreal. I didn’t want to get my hopes up because I’d faced rejection in past. But I liked Kathleen so much (insert whine to the heavens).

I thought, “This is a person I would like to work with forever.” And isn’t that what we all want in an agent? A partner. A friend.

By the next morning, I was losing my ever-lovin’ mind. To distract myself from refreshing my inbox every two minutes, I went on a ten mile mountain bike ride. THE CALL came while I was in the middle of the woods. I almost crashed my bike into a tree trying to dig my phone out of my tight bike shorts.

All poor Kathleen heard was screams, and finally, when I actually heard her say how much she loved Juju’s Child, and her offer of representation, she had to listen to more screams. Although, when I think back to that moment, I like to pretend I was dignified. In actuality, my brain totally shut down.

The list I had made of “things to ask if an agent offers representation” was at home while I still huddled in blissful euphoria beneath the tree that had almost decapitated me.

When I returned home, I gave Kathleen a call. We had a lengthy discussion about revisions and our ideas for improving upon the existing story after I returned home. Her revision suggestions and mine meshed. I notified the other agents who were considering the manuscript and those that I had queried, and informed them I would be making my decision in a week.

It was kind of predestined thing. Kathleen was meant to be my agent. The reason it took so long for me to find her was she wasn’t representing YA when I first started my agent search. Thank goodness, I found her because I can’t imagine being with any other agent. Not that there aren’t a whole lot of awesome agents out there, but because I feel like I’m going through this process with a friend.

http://www.marsallyonliteraryagency.com/about_kathleen.asp

http://yesternightsvoyage.blogspot.com/2011/06/interview-with-angie-sandro-newly.html

http://anjeasandro.blogspot.com/2011/05/year-of-fun-may-month-i-found-my-dream.html

Guest Blogger Al Lamanda: Rambling Musings of the Mistakes I’ve Made Along the Way to Being Published.

**Please welcome author Al Lamanda, who is this month's guest blogger.**

You’ve sweated, stressed over, lost sleep because of, skipped meals, stood up friends and family, wrote, rewrote, gave up on, went back to, and finally finished the book you started out to write.

Finally, it’s finished. Your book. Now what?

When I first started writing, there weren’t the choices there are today. My choices were traditional publishers and that was it. Today, if you so choose, you can self-publish on a dozen different eBook publishing sites.

Before you try the eBook route, you want to take your best shot at getting you book scooped up by an agent, who will then in turn sell it for the best deal possible to a publisher. Where do you start?

Why, at the beginning, of course, because very little has changed in the world of traditional publishing. Your best chance of selling your work to a publisher is to get an agent who believes in you, and that isn’t easy. In fact, it’s very difficult. Not impossible, but difficult.

So, with that in mind, here are some of the things I did wrong and what I did to correct them along the way.

First, assuming you’ve finished your book, you must write a perfect query letter to an agent. One page or less, preferably less. An agent may receive hundreds of query letters in a week, how much time do you think will be spent on your six page rambler? My first query letter was almost seven pages. I included everything but my height and weight in it, and guess how many responses I got in return?

So what’s in a perfect query letter? Who you are, what your book is about, your contact information and a short bio of your work, if you have one. You can find many good examples of query letters on the sites I will list below. Note they are all one page or less. Practice yours until it’s the best query letter you can make it. Remember your query letter is your face, your introduction and your first impression. Make it a great one.

Now you have a query letter, so what do you do with it? Send it to an agent, of course. I mean, how could they not love it? After all, it’s your book. Right? So what I did was send my query to about five hundred agents. I figured volume query lettering would have to work if you send out enough of them. Of course, that proved to be the exact wrong thing to do.

Here’s why. If you do your homework, you’ll find that most agents represent the type of books they are interested in. So why query an agent looking for women’s fiction and tell them about you great mystery/thriller? Why query an agent looking for action/suspense with you great new western or romance novel? Do you homework and find the agents interested in your genre and query them. If you check the websites I’ve listed below, you can locate the agents interested in your genre. Those are the ones to target.

So you written the perfect query and sent them to your targeted agents and yikes, an agent wants to read your work. What now?

Simple, you do what the agent asks. Some will want to see a synopsis and first three chapters. Others will want a synopsis and the entire manuscript. Most, if not all will request a synopsis. The first time an agent asked me for a synopsis, I sent one nearly the size of my book. I never heard back. A synopsis should be two to six pages and no more. An agent doesn’t have the time to read a twenty page outline. If you had to read twenty or thirty of them a day, would you? Check the websites I list below for samples of some good synopsis writing. Practice writing yours and make sure it’s the best it can be before sending it out.

You’ve gotten this far, but you’re not there yet. When the agent asks to see your manuscript, what is expected is a manuscript formatted to industry standards. Nothing fancy in the least. Just 12 font, double spaced and as mistake free as possible. They don’t expect perfect, but they do expect industry standards and good. If the book is sold, a professional editor will take it from there. Check the websites below for samples of industry standards.

After that, it’s a waiting game. Don’t bug the agent. Normal response time is three months to get back to you, some as much as six months. After all, yours is not the only manuscript they have to read on their desk.

One final note on a doozy of a mistake I made early on. I took rejection personally. It isn’t. Resist the temptation to let that agent know what you think of their rejection notice. Rejection is just part of the business. Every reader won’t love your book and neither will every agent. Keep in mind that the agent who rejected your first book just might love your second one, but they will never read it if you make them an enemy.

Remember, when it comes to agents, it only takes one. If you don’t make the mistakes I did and your book is good enough, you will find that one.

Thanks for letting me share some of my mistakes with you and I hope they help you along your way.

http://www.agentquery.com/
http://www.guidetoliteraryagent.com/
Predators & Editors

Al Lamanda is the author of the books Dunston Falls, Walking Homeless, Running Homeless and Sunset (release date 2012.)

Bits O'Wisdom: Worth It?

**Hello everyone! We have a guest blogger today who would like to share some words of inspiration with us. Is being a writer worth it? Why do we do it? Here are her thoughts on the matter....**

You’re a writer.


Anyone can call themselves that these days. But what does being a writer really mean?

It means life as you know it will suck big ones for the most part. It means long, sleepless, over-caffeinated nights when the voices in your head refuse to stop their incessant yapping. It means looks of admiration from your friends and loved ones that soon turn into pity and finally annoyance, as you strive for that dream of publication.

It means rejection.

It means wanting to bang your head against the wall when the words won’t come. It means getting a day job so you can feed yourself and your family because your writing sure ain’t doing it. Oh yeah. Didn’t anyone tell you that writing doesn’t always pay? No? Well, I hope you’re not too disappointed.

It means rewrites. Editing. It means swallowing critique and more editing. And then when you do happen to get published, it means doing all the above OVER and OVER again for the rest of your life.

I know. When it’s put that way you have to wonder: Why on earth would anyone put themselves through such torture? Why do I bother doing this to myself?

Because…You. Are. A. Writer!

You don’t know where those stories come from or why the need to get them out is there. You just know it’s there inside you. That lust for the written word. That desire for a good story. You were born to do this. You are going to do this!

So you suck it up. You write every day. Every day. Even when you don’t want to. Even when the words are fighting you and the things you write down don’t make any sense. You know your ideas are good. That they are what readers are looking for. So you press on. You ignore the haters. Ignore the looks, the snide remarks about how you’re wasting your time. What do they know? You just wrote a chapter today. Ha! In their faces!

Rejection happens to you. Great! You’re trying! You’re not just sitting around wondering: What if? you’re doing something. So they didn’t like you. Send it again. Start a new story. Kill off your “darlings.” Write the most wretched chapters you’ve ever seen. Then when the burning sensation is gone from your eyes…edit them. Then edit some more. Who’s going to quit? Not you. No way. You keep going. Keep dreaming. Writing.

Yes! Above all else…You keep writing!

Sounds hard, right? Sounds terrifying too I’ll bet. But so what? You’re tough. You’re a writer after all. Writing is hard work. Hard! But the end result, my fellow authors, is so WORTH IT.

~Rue McKinley

Book Review: Gone With a Handsomer Man

Gone with a Handsomer Man
by Michael Lee West

Check out fellow blogger Joyce Lanksy's review of Gone with a Handsomer Man :)
And be sure to follow her blog while you're there!

The Beauty of Loss (or the flip side of it)

**Hey y'all! Our guest blogger this month is Julieanne Lynch! Writer extraordinaire! :) She is my dark mistress...author of all things horrific and lovely. She is gracing us with her words today!**

When the beautiful and equally talented, Minerva asked me to guest post on the blog, my first reaction was “Oh my God, what do I know about romance?” I was completely taken aback, but then thought, hmm, well, my books and stories do have some element of romance going on, even if loved ones end up dead.

So, now after much thought and procrastination, I decided to base my post on the importance of the loss of a loved one (or a most hated character) in a plot (but remember, this is me, and I tend to waffle, so God only knows where this post will go). Why? Because we all love a good heart-wrenching story were the reader can connect with that loss. We all at some point in our lives will experience the loss of a relationship, whether it be through death, the breakdown of a marriage, or whatever reasons people find to walk away. But come on, if you know me, I can’t just look at things so black and white. I like to delve into the psyche of my character. I like to find that pinnacle point, and rip their souls to shreds.

Why?

Because I want my reader to feel that pain, feel the anguish, and connect with the inner turmoil. There is no sense in sugar coating pain. I believe if you want a certain scene in anything you write to have a fundamental reaction, you have to make the feelings and emotions of your characters believable and real.

I am not one for happy endings and nine times out of ten, death or near death plays a major role in my work, and to captivate that, I work on the feelings of a certain character.

Sometimes I wonder is it because my mind is always in a dark place, who knows, but I can tell you this, writing scenes of loss can be somewhat soul draining.

I think to be successful at drawing your reader in, you have to use the right bait and I find using terrifying scenes of domestic violence, or rape quite a successful route (my own personal opinion). Now don’t get me wrong, I just don’t use these things for the shock factor, but more for the value and sensory vision for the reader. I like to pull them into that scene, experience the trauma first hand, and if I am effective enough, my reader will close the book and feel a sense of being overwhelmed. To me, that proves the job well done.

There is nothing worse than sitting down, opening a book, and being pulled into a certain scene and feel like you just wasted an hour of your life on drivel. As an avid reader, I want to be stripped bare, I want my insides to knot, I want to feel every toe-curling moment, and I want to be able to sit and think about what I had just read. I want to be satisfied. Not too much to ask, is it?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am very well aware that many writers evoke these reactions in many different ways, but for me, I like to feed off the misery of my characters. If I want someone pushed through a shower screen, I bloody well make sure the reader can envision that in their head. Whether I describe the shards of glass cutting through bare flesh, or the feeling of warm velvety blood trickling down moist skin. I want my reader to experience that in their minds eye.

I enjoy writing about misery and loss, because it along with love, is the one thing that connects us as human beings. We all have the rawest of emotions running through us, and as much as we try to deny it, it is very much a fact. We either love, or hate. We grieve over the most simplest things. We as a race cannot decipher a way to control our emotions - unless your in a straight jacket and being fed liquid prozac (if it exists) to freeze your mind, and numb your soul. Yet, what do we do? We come back for more. Why? Because it is what we do best. We cannot live without some drama in our lives, and lets face it, what would life be like if there wasn't some kind of turmoil involved? It keeps us real.

And with those experiences, when you construct a piece of written work, you are qualified and justified in writing the way you do.

Who is to tell you how to write?

No one.

But remember not every love story is riddled with bunnies and flowers, and birds breaking into song. Real love is torture, it can be painful and more than anything, it isn’t always forever.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Make sure you guys check out Julieanne's blog!

Guide to the Art of...

Hey everyone! I've been invited to guest blog on a friend and fellow author Julianne Lynch's site. So please stop over and have a look. This post is spicier than my usual but you should enjoy it ;)

Guide to the Art of Sex

**Minerva is Ree Vera. Just an fyi. Haha**

Bloggerific: CHERRI ANDERSON--Playlists and Trailers

Lately I've been noticing a lot more authors--both published and unpublished--making playlists and trailers that go along with their novels. I've also seen a few commercials for books. Can you believe it?

Sometimes when we write, we write to music playing in the background. There's always that one song, or that one genre of music that gets you in the mood to write. Or in the mood to write a certain scene. It's what comes to mind when we go back and re-read what we got down. A playlist of those songs, the ones you wrote to, can get the reader a deeper feel of the emotion behind the words. Other times playlists are used to create a feel for the book as a whole. The mood of the entire story and not just one particular scene. I've seen this done more with fantasy novels. And if done right...it works. I feel more of a connection with the characters, their stories, etc...

The only way I can think to explain this is, well, take movies for example. There's almost always music playing in the background. It doesn't matter if the scene is full of action or drama...or if the actors are simply talking. You might not notice it, but the music is there, giving the film a certain feel. A theme. And when you hear that song somewhere else--it takes your mind to that film. That's what you want. You want your readers to hear a song from your playlist and BOOM! They're thinking about your book, your characters.

I think trailers are gaining in popularity because of the visual aspect to it. When you read, it's up to your mind to picture the places, the characters, along with everything else. Sure the author helps with descriptions (and if they are good ones, they can do wonders) but a lot of it is really up to you. This is why I love reading. I like having the choices. There are some, however, who don't. These are the ones whom would be better served with a little teaser....trailer style!

You can make it as detailed or as vague as you want. It's really up to you and how much you want to leave up to your readers' imaginations.

So what do you think? Are playlists and trailers too much? Or do you have some of your own?

~Cherri

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cherri Anderson is new to the blogging world and will be starting up her own MUSIC MADNESS blog soon. Links to this will be posted once it's up and running.