Day 3....
Wednesday is HUMP Day everybody! What better day to be talking to a romance writer who writes some of the hottest, sexiest scenes ever!!
Also, what better day to chat about the "hills and humps" that we are forced to climb over on our way to getting published.
Here are my questions for Rocki on the topic....
1. How did you get your first agent?
2. What are your thoughts on self-publishing?
3. Any publishers that you'd like to work with other than your current ones? If so, why?
4. Your best tip for keeping your chin up during "rejections" galore?
Thanks in advance for answering my questions.
Everyone else....chime in with your burning hot questions....
Have a great day!
Oops...forgot to announce the winner of yesterday's bath stuff prize package....the winner is.... Marilyn P. !!! Way2go! Congrats and contact me a kerribookwriter @ yahoo.com (no spaces) with your snail mail information and I'll get your package out to you ASAP. Thanks for playing!
There's still a prize up for grabs today, folks! You must post to be elegible. Also, the more times you post during the week, the more entries you have for Friday's grand prize gift basket!
Chow, bellas! (In case anyone was wondering, I DO mean "chow"! It's a personal joke between me and a childhood friend. It is also my standard signature line on blogs and fully intentional.)
7 comments:
Great questions!
I'm doing NaNoWriMo this month. It's just a self-imposed deadline (50K words in 30 days). There's no money on the line, no contract I'll be breaching if I don't make it. But it's become a very personal thing for me.
Even so, I've been tempted on several occasions to just kill off my hero and heroine and type "The End." How do you stay motivated when there's so many exciting things going on around you and you've come to hate the hero you once loved?
Thanks. :-)
Marilyn
Congrats Marilyn P.! And great questions, Kerri!
Hey gang - taking a break from writing to answer a question at a time. I got my first agent by querying; she seemed moderately interested, but had some problems with the book. While she was reading the entire ms, I got an offer to epublish the book. I wasn't quite ready to go that route, but I wrote her a note and said, "I got an offer on the book. Can we talk?" She called about ten minutes later and I KNEW if I could just talk to her, I could convince her I was the real deal. It worked. By the way, she never sold that book - but her first piece of advice to me was "write another one while I pitch this one" and it was that second manuscript that ultimately sold.
To get an agent, you have to query. Query until you are blue. Keep writing, keep submitting, keep trying. Contest with agent judges and attending conferences are other good ways to get in front of an agent. There will be tons of rejection along the way - I have a file with thirty agent rejections in it.
Rocki
My thoughts on self-publishing....well, first I wouldn't confuse e-publishing with self-publishing. I think the epub market is growing faster than anything else right now and the RIGHT epublisher (Samhain and Siren come to mind) can be a real viable option for a writer to sell her work. I do think certain genres do very well in epub, such as erotica, especially erotica that really pushes the envelope.
Self-publishing - where a writer basically pays a printer to publish her book - is fine if you just really don't want to die without seeing your words in print, or you have a really market (small) specific story or memoir. Overall, I would say avoid it, unless you happen to have a lot of money you don't want. But, honestly, I'd rather have shoes.
Any publishers I'd work with other than my current ones? Well, I do love writing for Pocket Books; I'm still with the first editor who bought my first book (Micki Nuding) and our relationship is very strong and healthy. I believe there's a lot to be said for long term loyalty and I hope to be with Pocket for many more books. That said, if another publisher offered me a contract for a different type of book that did not compete with what I do for Pocket and I had the time to write another book, you bet I would!
Coping with rejection? I find shopping to be quite theraputic, followed by large amounts of wine, an abundance of, shall we call it, "affection" from my husband, and late night phone calls with my girlfriends. But honestly, there's nothing you can do but shake it off and move on. Every rejection hurts. But it's part of the business. I wrote an article called "File it under H for Heartbreak" - it's on my website under the "writers corner." www.roxannestclaire.com. That pretty much sums up my feelings on rejection.
Any more questions? I'm here!
Did you get my snail mail info for the prize?
Thanks and it's been a fun week.
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