GENREALITY

Hi all, I’d like to introduce you to Karin Harlow. I asked her if she’d be willing to answer a few questions because she has a new series coming out, and I figured y’all might be interested in her efforts and path for launching something brand new. So, please, welcome Karin…and play nice, she’s doing a giveaway.

Karin, welcome the Genreality blog, where we like to talk the reality of the writing business.    Let’s start with a quick rundown on what The L.O.S.T. series is, and how you pitched it to your publisher, okay?
Thank you for the invite, Sasha!

We pitched the L.O.S.T. series as The Dirty Dozen meets Mission Impossible with a paranormal twist.

When you have no alternative, then you call in L.O.S.T. Because with L.O.S.T., it’s do or die.

L.O.S.T.

Last Option Special Team

A group of rogue cops, their lives destroyed, rise from the ashes like the mythical phoenix…
Caught acting outside the law, they are given a choice by the enigmatic Mr. Black: Spend their lives in prison. Or break all ties with their past, assume a new identity, and become part of an elite crime fighting team unofficially sanctioned by the U.S. Attorney General’s Office.
Their sole purpose is to close the cases that normal law enforcement channels cannot touch. What they discover is there are no rules–not for them and not for the Others.
L.O.S.T. operatives are the hunters, the cleaners, the end of the road for the bad guys. Immortal. Or not.
No boundaries.
No laws.
No compromises.

When the balance of humanity is in jeopardy, failure is not an option.
Semper Invictus, Always Invincible.

Very intriguing. And a great example of a high concept pitch.  Action, intrigue, humanity in danger, possible imortals, definite bad ass hero’s.  Well done.

Now…You’re bio says you’re a full time writer, how often do you work a week, and how much of that is actual writing time? Lately, with promoting ENEMY LOVER, I haven’t written at all, which is very bad. I need to get back to L.O.S.T. book two asap! That said, when I don’t have a debut novel releasing in a crazy market, I write an average of 20 hours a week or 10-12K words, usable words, I probably write twice that, which I dump. The rest of a regular 40-hour workweek consists of keeping up with the industry, blogging, reading and returning emails and doing research. That time doesn’t include writer functions i.e. RWA meetings or traveling to give workshops.

Our readership here at Genreality includes authors of all levels, will you share with them what promotional efforts you’ve put forth in launching the new series and why you chose those things? I’m fortunate, the biggest promotional effort has come from my publisher Simon & Schuster. They kicked off with a gorgeous full-page ad in RT. Also, ENEMY LOVER is slotted as a lead title, which gives it co op money, co op money that was accepted by several retail outlets, which gives the book better placement and bigger buy-ins. The cover is to freakin’ die for. My editor knew exactly what she wanted and didn’t settle until she had it. I am beyond thrilled with it. My publicist at Simon and Schuster is amazing and works very closely with me. She sends out review copies, she set up a huge blog tour that if is doens’ kill me will, well kill me! as did my trusty, and most awesome assistant (they did cross reference each other). My S&S publicist offered the books that were and are being given away on the various blogs. As the author, I do an interview or write a guest blog for the blof site, and on my day I show up bright eyed an bushy-tailed. The good part for me is, I love to talk about books and the industry, and I don’t mind at all answering industry related questions. So blogging for me is just a natural extension of my motor mouth! I also ordered as a special a promo item, custom L.O.S.T. latte mugs (see picture), as well as fabulous practically pieces of art, bookmarks, which I will be happy to mail anyone, just email me at KarinHarlow@aol.com with your snail mail addy and I’ll get them right out to you!

I really believe viral marketing is vital to generating buzz. The buzz for ENEMY LOVER has been phenomenal and the reviews? I’m just flabbergasted. I knew I wrote a damn good book, but the praise has been beyond what I could have written myself! So writing a good book helps a writer’s cause. And really, at the end of the day that is all we have sole control over. The final product.

What drew you to write paranormal?  Is it something you just love to explore, or was it a smart business decision due to the current market? I have always been a vamp fan, since the days of Dark Shadows. Frankly, I’ve always wanted my own hunky vampire, and since they don’t fall off trees, I created my own. And though elite vampire Marcus Cross is just that, a vampire, the series is set in the human world.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? Don’t take it personally. Don’t quit. It’s just business. I already had the thick skin, I’ve owned my own business for over two decades, so I get the it’s just business aspect, and I’m not so arrogant that I would not take good advice from those with the experience to give it, so, I started out on very solid feet. My caveat to that advice is this: Publishing can be summed up in one word: Subjectivity. Every editor has a pet peeve, a joy, a hatred of certain plots or characters or genres. It’s not you. Hone your craft. Write the thing a dozen times until it’s right. Writers write. And there is nothing accomplished in this very competitive ever evolving world of publishing with out putting in serious hard work.

What advice would you give to new writers who are trying to sell their manuscripts? If one gets rejected across the board write another story, and another and another. Pay attention to trends and who is acquiring what. Pay attention to new imprints and new lines. Have a trusty smart better writer than you CP. Go to conferences where you can meet agents and editors. Do. The. Work! And Do. Not. Quit!

Now finally, the fun stuff…..
ENEMY LOVER is the first book of the series. Have you got a blurb and an excerpt to share with us?  I sure do! Oh, and before I forget, I have one of those very kewl custom L.O.S.T. latte mugs I’d like to give to one lucky commenter who asks me a writer/reader related question (those who ask a question will be entered into a drawing, which Sasha will announce by the end of the weekend!)!

Want to read an excerpt…click below the break!

ENEMY LOVER is book one in the L.O.S.T. series

Pocket Star, May 25, 2010

It’s Jax Cassidy’s first mission for L.O.S.T.—one that will give the former cop who went rogue a chance to prove herself. Her assignment: gain the trust of assassin Marcus Cross . . . eliminate him . . . then take down Marcus’s mentor, Joseph Lazarus, a man with a bold eye on the White House. But the woman who’s known by her team for being a femme fatale succumbs to passion, only to discover Cross’s deadly secret. He’s a vampire, and Joseph Lazarus is his creator.

Left for dead by his platoon in the violent hills of Afghanistan, special ops sniper Marcus Cross was given a second chance at life. His newly heightened skills make him the perfect killing machine, and as Lazarus’s right hand man, he’s quickly rising to the top of his dark empire, purging enemies with speed and precision. Only when dangerous beauty Jax Cassidy is sent to bring him in does he begin to question Lazarus’s motives and his own actions. But when Jax’s life is threatened by the one thing that can destroy them both, Marcus must make a bitter choice—her death or his.

Read the rest of this entry �

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I asked the lovely and well known non-fiction author Deborah Blake to talk about her agent search to find someone to represent her novels. She has a story that may seem familiar to many of you, and she was kind enough to share it here.

2 Years, 3 Manuscripts, and 50 Rejections: Anatomy of an Agent Search

By Deborah Blake

I have been writing on and off my entire life. In my youth, I even sent out a few short stories (mostly fantasy and science fiction). They got rejected. That led to the “off” part.

Five years ago, almost accidentally, I wrote a book about modern Witchcraft, and started my career as a Llewellyn author. I loved writing the nonfiction, and my fourth and fifth books will be out this year—but truly, my heart was with with fiction world. So I decided I needed to get serious about that side of my writing. That first nonfiction book had taught me something important: I could finish a book.

I set myself some concrete goals: I would write and finish a novel. Then I would get an agent. A top agent, of course. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. But I didn’t realize just how hard and long the journey would be.

Two years, three manuscripts, and well over fifty rejections later, I finally achieved my goal. Along the way, a few surprising things happened, and I learned a lot about the agent search, publishing, and myself.

Candace Havens—one of the best surprises that happened to me on my journey—suggested that I share my travels and a little bit of what I learned, so here it is:

The Journey—

I finished the final edits on the first book in early February of 2008, and sent out my first query about a week later. Over the course of about a year, I sent out a lot of other queries, and got requests for partials and a few requests for fulls (including one from Harlequin editor Patience Smith, as a result of my EMILY “Best of the Best” contest win). I used all the Writer’s Digest GUIDE TO AGENTS and GUIDE TO PUBLISHING books, and the Agent Query site online. I also checked websites for the agencies and agents I was interested in, read the dedication pages of books by authors I respected, and started spending inordinate amounts of time following agents and editors on Facebook and Twitter.

Lesson #1: DO YOUR RESEARCH.

It took insane amounts of time and effort, but the research really did pay off. For one thing, I only sent queries to agents who represented the kind of books I was writing. Which undoubtedly increased the amounts of requests I got (and didn’t piss off the agents—always a plus). It also helped me to come up with a top “wish list’ of agents, one of whom was the agent who signed me.

The Journey –

I also started following some of the authors I really liked and admired, the fabulous Candace Havens among them. I went to blogs and left comments. I bought books and told the authors I’d done so. I supported and applauded their endeavors, asked questions, and soaked up as much wisdom as possible from all these lovely folks who were further down the path than I was. Don’t get me wrong—I wasn’t sucking up. (Much.) I was demonstrating that I was serious about being a successful author, helping out writers whose work I genuinely admired, and learning a lot in the process. The surprise was that many of these folks have ended up being real friends. The help and support I’ve gotten from them—much of which took the form of repeated “don’t give up, I know you’ll make it” mantras—has far exceeded anything I might have hoped for when I started out.

Lesson #2: WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

Writing is a tough business. Some authors see themselves as being in competition with other authors for the few available publishing slots. But most of the authors I know take the opposite view. They cheer each other on, welcome guest blogs from fellow writers, brag about other author’s new releases on twitter, and much, much more. The writing community turned out to be a warm and welcoming place, and I now have friends and critique partners I found along the way. And I have started to mentor other authors who are treading the path I was on, to pass on the help and advice so many other authors shared with me when I needed it.

The Journey –

Eventually, I joined RWA, and a few RWA online chapters that were the most appropriate for my writing. (There is no RWA chapter near me, alas.) I entered contest after contest for almost a year, garnering lots of feedback, which I added to the feedback I’d received from agents and editors. Some of it really resonated with me (or was repeated over and over, which told me that no matter how I perceived my work, others were seeing it differently), and some of it made no sense whatsoever. I also took a number of online writing classes and went to workshops at my first ever RWA Nationals last year. And I kept writing. When book #1 didn’t sell, I wrote book #2. When book #2 didn’t sell, I wrote book #3. And shockingly—each book was a little bit better than the one before it.

Lesson #3: USE ALL THE TOOLS AT YOUR DISPOSAL TO IMPROVE YOUR WRITING. THEN WRITE, WRITE, WRITE.

This might have been the most important lesson of all. Writers write. Yes, they blog, and send out queries, and take classes, and spend way too much time on Twitter, but mostly what they do is WRITE. No coming up with excuses for why the writing can’t get done. No indulging in week-long pouts because someone sent you a rejection letter. Just write. Along the way, learn everything you can about how to make your writing better. Listen to those who give you feedback, but also listen to your own inner voice; no one can tell you what is best for your writing. Pay attention to what you like about other authors’ writing, and figure out what works and what doesn’t. Then write some more. When I first started out, every rejection sent me into a tailspin that lasted for days. By the end, I’d shrug, say, “Well, not the right one for me,” and go back to the computer to write the book that WOULD get me the one.

The Journey –

Book one was sent out to over sixty agents. Book two was sent out to two—both folks who’d read the full of #1 and said, “Not quite, but send me the next one.” But as much as I loved the book (and believe it will sell when the market changes), it was clear that humor was a tough sell. So I made a conscious choice to put aside both books 1 and 2 for a bit, took a break from querying, and wrote #3. When it was done, I queried my top three choices. The first choice said he wasn’t taking on anyone new, nothing personal. The second one said she didn’t love the voice. The third one—Lucienne Diver, my top choice, and now a pal—said she loved the book…but she’d recently signed someone whose protagonist was a little too similar to mine, and she felt she wouldn’t be able to sell it. Arghhhhh!

So I took a chance, and asked her if she would mind sending it on to Elaine Spencer, also at The Knight Agency, and Candy’s agent. Elaine had read book #1 and liked it, but felt it was too close to things already being repped by the agency. The next day, I got an email from Elaine telling me she loved the book. Really loved it. That was on a Friday afternoon. On the following Monday, we talked on the phone and she officially agreed to represent me. My journey was over.

Lesson #4 – BE FLEXIBLE AND NEVER GIVE UP

I thought I had a top three list of agents I wanted. It turned out that my real dream agent wasn’t one of them. (Although I confess, she was still up there in the top five.) Rather than be discouraged because things hadn’t turned out exactly the way I wanted, I rolled over into plan B and it turned out even better than I expected. All authors dream of having an agent who is completely enthusiastic about their work, and in Elaine, I have just that. I couldn’t be happier. If you’re going to be a professional author, learning to roll with the punches is an absolute necessity. Even the most successful authors I know still sometimes get their work rejected. (Happened to one of my friends just this week). But they eat a few medicinal chocolates, and then dust themselves off and get back to the work of writing. Because no matter what stage of the journey you’re at, if you’re a writer—you write.

Deborah Blake
www.deborahblakehps.com
Circle, Coven & Grove: A Year of Magical Practice (Llewellyn 2007)
Everyday Witch A to Z (Llewellyn 2008)
The Goddess is in the Details (2009)
Everyday Witch A to Z Spellbook (2010)

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HelenKay Dimon is an award-winning author of more than a dozen novels and novellas. Her first single title, Your Mouth Drives Me Crazy, was excerpted in Cosmopolitan magazine in August ‘07 and spotlighted at E! Online. She made Cosmopolitan a second time in December 2009 with her novella “It’s Hotter At Christmas” from the Kissing Santa Claus anthology….and she’s here today!

PPLease welcome Guest Blogger HelenKay, and make her feel at home!!

Time To Retire TSTL

I am asking – begging, really – that we retire the term TSTL. We use the “too stupid to live” description to signal our distaste for a heroine’s actions. It’s a shortcut for saying the heroine did something so ridiculous that involuntary eye rolling immediately commenced. We throw the term around all the time.

We use TSTL when we don’t like a heroine’s actions or decisions. We use it when a heroine does something we wouldn’t do. We use it to say a heroine has been irresponsible or guided by something other than her obvious intellect. We use it when it has nothing to do with a heroine being stupid. In other words, we use it all the time and most of those instances it really doesn’t fit. It’s gotten to the point where TSTL doesn’t have any real meaning except that, maybe, we’re all a little too tough on heroines.

Here’s the problem: women are flawed, sometimes irresponsible and often make mistakes. Some are broken, lost or sad. If real-life women are complex, why can’t our fictional ones be the same way? It is okay for a heroine to be unlikeable or make questionable choices. No, really. It is. The question really isn’t about where the heroine is when the book starts. The important thing is where she is at the end. She needs to grow and change in some way. If she doesn’t she’s not TSTL, she’s just not well written.

I have two March releases. The heroines are very different. In one, UNDER THE GUN (Harlequin Intrigue), the heroine dumped the hero years before and married someone else instead. Now, she’s been framed for this other guy’s murder. In the other, LEAVE ME BREATHLESS (Kensington Brava), the heroine blew her career at the FBI and is now unemployed and a bit financially desperate. She ends up taking a job as the hero judge’s bodyguard. These are two imperfect ladies. Neither is TSTL. That doesn’t mean they always move forward in the best way. Quite the opposite is true. They make emotional decisions and act against their interest. In other words, they act like people.

I see the TSTL tag put on fictional heroines at the time. I read the same books and usually don’t get the TSTL issue. Often times I see heroines who make mistakes and lumber along…just like the rest of us. That’s realistic. The one exception? When the killer is chasing the victim heroine through the house and she runs upstairs instead of going out the front door standing right in front of her. But even then there might be a plausible reason. You just never know.

So, please, let’s find a new term.

About HelenKay Dimon.
After twelve years as a divorce lawyer specializing in unhappy endings, HelenKay now writes romance for a living. The sudden career change resulted from her husband getting one of those “can’t turn it down” job offers. With only a few months’ notice, his work took the family from Maryland to their current home in California. So, instead of days filled with court, clients and a great deal of whining and complaining, HelenKay now writes for a living. She thinks of herself as a “recovering lawyer” and is grateful every day for the ability to write full time.

Check out her latest release from Brava.. Leave Me Breathless.

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Being a writer means that some part of the brain is always at work. Stories take shape in the unconscious mind, storehouse of memories and ideas and sensations and emotions and patterns and insights. This means it takes more effort to actually take time off and recharge that brain consciously so that the unconscious always has lots of raw material to work with.

So what does a writer do on a weekend? Probably, writes. Writing is just not a 9-5, M-F kind of gig. I even get business emails on weekends I have to respond to. And I honestly can’t remember the last time I went through a major holiday or long weekend without edits or something to proofread or something I had to just stay with, even if it was only to write 100 words, so the story would stay fresh in my head.

But writing and proofing and researching and revising can’t be done 24/7, either, so when the writing is put away, it’s time to go get immersed in sounds and sights and sensations, emotions, experiences. Hang out with friends and family. Cook a meal. Go to a museum and look at art. Study the lines of sculpture. Wander a fabric shop and touch the different textures; feel the difference between denim, linen, fleece, velvet. Look at the range of colors; not just blue but indigo and turquoise and sky blue and navy.

Wander through a store and really look at clothing. Have all your characters started to sound generic in their dress? Examine something different. Try to find an outfit your character would need for a given scene.

Go to an art store. Look at all the different paints and charcoals, all the pastels, all the papers. Buy some to play with.

Get your camera out and shoot whatever catches your eye. Take a close-up, then a wide angle view. Write about the difference in what you can see from just changing perspective in the same scene, a little five minute exercise.

Read. It doesn’t matter if it’s history or poetry or science or astronomy or astrology or a mystery or science fiction or fantasy or a book written for middle grade children. Read. Watch a movie and see how visual information is conveyed. Listen to the way music creates mood and heightens drama.

Take a nap. Sit under a tree. Look up at clouds in the sky. Sit in a chair and do absolutely nothing but breathe. Listen to music. Really look at a blade of grass, a leaf, a flower.

All of these details and images go into the unconscious to be drawn on the next time we describe a setting, bring a scene to life in words. How a writer spends a weekend determines how the writing goes when official work time rolls around again. It’s easy to say that writing consists of butt in the chair, fingers on the keyboard, but the raw material of fiction requires getting out of that chair and touching something else to gather in.

Charlene Teglia is the author of multiple romances for multiple publishers. Her most recent title, Claimed by the Wolf (St. Martin’s, Dec. 09) is in stores now.

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Pinch-hitting here at Genreality gave me two reactions. I’m thrilled at the opportunity. But I also immediately asked myself what I could contribute. Since I’ve been a writing pro for five years and have experience with both new markets in epublishing and traditional markets, I have a background that’s very relevant to the changing times.

So for my first post as a substitute, I’m sharing 10 things I’ve learned about the writing biz.

1.  Keep your day job and your benefits as long as possible. I didn’t have this option; I started my writing career working around a special needs child and getting a “real” job and putting her in daycare was not an option. But if it is an option, understand that it doesn’t make you less of a pro. It actually goes a long ways to protecting your pro career by buying you time to wait for the right deal instead of latching onto one that might not be a good fit because you need the money. And once you’re paying for your own insurance and supplying all your own benefits, your costs increase significantly. Unless you can sell enough books per year to make up the difference in salary and benefits, it can make a lot of sense to hang onto that corporate position. The myth that having a day job means you’re less serious about your career or in some way a lesser pro than somebody who doesn’t is just that, a myth. The hard reality is that bills don’t wait for six months while you wait for a publisher to pay. Unexpected medical expenses can sink you. And you’re at risk for making the wrong call for your long-term career goals in order to meet your immediate needs.

2. Don’t expect anybody else to care about your interests the way you do. Your agent might be the nicest person in the world, but he/she has interests that don’t include you and sometimes might directly conflict with yours. Same for your editor and publisher. You can respect the people you work with (and if you don’t respect them, don’t work with them) and you can listen to their input and consider it, but at the end of the day, your publishing career is yours and it’s up to you to make the best choices you can for yourself.

3.  Sometimes the best you can do is make a well-informed and hedged guess. This business is full of unknowns. If you second-guess every decision, you’ll make yourself crazy. You can only make choices based on what you know at the time. Do your best to investigate the real risks and benefits, make your call, and know that sometimes you’ll make the wrong call. The possibility of a mistake can’t be allowed to paralyze you.

4.  Writing is a business. If you want to be an artist more than you want a viable career, publishing may not be for you. Or you may be happiest self-publishing and having complete creative control. Only you know what will make you happy. Sometimes achieving a goal and getting a taste of what you wanted makes you realize you need to readjust your goals or reevaluate your plans. Sometimes life changes and impacts your plans. If you know your values and goals and make choices that are in alignment with them, you can find a good fit or make one.

5.  Your life should include writing but not revolve around it. You need time for your friends and family, time for yourself, time to take care of your health, time to read, time for hobbies. If you let writing eat up all that time, not only will you wear yourself out (and possibly write yourself out), you’ll be less resilient when you have career lows. Every career has ups and downs, nobody just has a straight upward progression. If your career is all you have, it’s time to make some life changes or you may be in a real personal crisis when a career crisis hits, making you less able to cope with the downturn and plan your next move.

6.  Surround yourself with smart, resilient people. Even though I’ve lived in relative isolation from other writers, the internet has allowed me to connect with writers and readers, to learn from people who have more experience than I do, to stay informed about changes in the market and see who is experimenting with what, and the results. Not only does it help to have community, you can avoid re-inventing the wheel. And we become like the people we associate with. So if you want to make smart choices, be resilient, and have career longevity, find people with those qualities and hang around them. I’ve been learning from Lynn Viehl and Holly Lisle since I made my first sale. Their advice via their blogs has been invaluable. Lately I’ve been reading Penelope Trunk’s blog because she has a great handle on what it takes to be successful in today’s business environment, and the difference in values and viewpoints between Gen X and Gen Y.

7.  Don’t take it all too seriously. It’s only a book. It’s only a career path. If your book tanks, if your career derails, it’s not the end of the world. Truly. See #5. It’s so easy to have tunnel-vision, to place so much importance on the outcome of this book, that deal, that when things go wrong it’s devastating. Things go wrong. They do in every business, and writing isn’t special and protected from bad things happening. We care so much about our words, our work. But we have so little control over the outcome. This can make us crazy.

8.  The publishing business really can make people nuts. That’s been a theme in these ten points, but it deserves one of its own. It’s because we have limited autonomy and limited control, but total responsibility for the outcome. If you at least know the business can make you crazy, you can compensate and be careful about getting too caught up in it. Following every trend, paying attention to every bit of news is a straight path to the nuthouse. Be informed, sure, but don’t obsess. Don’t lose sight of your goals, your values, what you want to do. If everybody says it can’t be done, ignore them and find a way to do at least most of what you want.

9.  We’re creative thinkers. This means we can apply creativity to business problems and come up with innovative solutions. Creativity is not limited to the ability to plot and write a novel. Business can benefit from creativity, too. Don’t discount your business abilities and leave that up to other people because you’re “just a writer”. You’re also an independent business person and uniquely gifted with the ability to come up with solid ideas.

10.  Writing fiction for a living really is a worthwhile goal. After five years, it’s still the only thing I really want to do. Writing a book is still the only thing I’ve ever done that fully engaged me and took everything I had. It’s the only job I’ve ever had that hasn’t gotten boring after six weeks.

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