Cat Agents & Me

I have to admit I've been in a funk (That's F-U-N-K, for all you  wisenhimers out there) for the past couple of months. My finances have been in the toilet lately, which is like worse than just tight. I'm now (husband included, bc we both work at same place) are laid off for 2 weeks. Christmas is not gonna happen in this house. It has been years since we put up a tree. Usually we've waited until the after Chirstmas sales to buy anything. Not this year.

Before I get someone to play the violin and get a weeping clown in here, I don't want anyone to leave a "you poor schmuck" message. This was going to be an up-beat post. And it will be. I promise. Just indulge me a little further if you will, this has a happy ending... sorta.


For the longest time I thought agents were human and come to find out they are not. I tried to get one for maybe a dozen years. Each time I wound up crying for about 4 days and then I quit querying all together. You can't keep on getting your face bashed in and like it and want to do it all over again. (and sure they say it's not personal, but seriously, it feels personal).


And this was me for aprox. 30 years of trying to get somewhere. I eventually began publishing in a small market, and I mean small, but I got paid $10 or so for things I sent in to a sweet lady editor of what was known as Weeds Corner magazine. It helped me get over the feeling I was a lousy writer. I had my first poem published with them, and everything I sent to them after that for 4 years.

I have been writing novels for my whole adult life--let's go with more than 35 years. That's a long time to keep trying to sell a novel--to ANYONE. I've seen publishers fade. I've known other writers around me being published and thought one day I'd be scooping up a book deal.



When I finished my first novel in the Sabrina Strong Series--yet again--I began looking around. I thought I had a publisher, only to find out they were going to charge an arm, leg, my left eye and my first born to edit it. I said no thank you (scumbag). I went to an ebook publisher which I won't name, and thought they were interested only to have the editor give me the runaround as to whether she wanted the rest of the book or not (for 3 months). At this point my Internet went out, and I never did find out if she ever answered my last email... I'm pretty sure she didn't.

Then I posted my first chapter on an author site I used to belong to, and someone responded. This someone happened to be a publisher. And ta-da, he became my present publisher, Wlfired Voss of Copperhill Media. I didn't know how this would play out. I mean I read their contract and could find nothing in it that gave me pause, and so I signed. I didn't get an advance, this is not one of your BIG 6... or 8 or whatever it was in 2009-2010. They were small, but they would take care of everything, right down to the cover and edits.

By this time I had already self-published my Spell of the Black Unicorn book. I'd paid $400, but couldn't go through that again just to get something else published (for what those other creeps were going to charge, I could have had five books published by them). At this time we didn't see a lot of people putting any faith in those people who'd self-published (wow has times changed). Only a lucky few got "discovered" by agents or publishers. Well, that didn't happen to me, and it really doesn't happen to a whole lot of people either.

But I did find out that people loved what I wrote. I got a taste of what it was like to have a book signing, have my very first physical copy of my own book in my hands and got to snot all over myself with happy tears. I did what I had been trying to do all my life, and I should not shove that all under the rug like it doesn't matter. It matters, and I have to remember how it felt before the publisher, and after.

To me having my work out there, I realized just yesterday, was something I had wanted for a very, VERY long time. I would have sold my soul to the same devil that Steve Jobs did, but he never did show up at my door. So, here I was sitting at my computer working on the edits of my 5th novel in series, waiting for the edits from my publisher, knowing that at some point next year I would have a third book out and had to plunk myself in the head and say "You stupid dummy! Look at where you were and where you are now!"

The Good News:
I'm working on the next two novels, have at least three out, and have 3 short stories out and hope to turn SOTBU into an ebook so that more people can enjoy it, because I had a lot of fun writing it. Ten years ago I couldn't say that. I can now. I can also say I DID NOT GIVE UP! That says a lot about the character of someone who had a dream, and didn't give up no matter how impossible it looked.

So, I'm not exactly rolling in the bucks having three novels out right now, but I have three novels out right now with the third in my series pending. Am I happy? Sure. I'm happy where I am. Do I want more. Damn tooten I do. But I should just keep on taking baby steps.

Just as a side note, I don't work the Internet like a goon until my fingers fall off and bug everyone to buy-buy-buy my books, because that's annoying as hell to me, so I'm sure it is to eveyone else. I really don't have time to toot my horn all that much. I've got writing to do and my publisher wants me to work on the novels instead of trying to push the book like a hopped up car salesman on a commercial.

So, I've had to realize that I have no control over people buying or not buying my books. I do know that when the 3rd one comes out the sales will jump. That's enough to make me smile and feel a sense of accomplishment, aside from all the stuff I've mentioned.

Until next time, my pretties!

The Long and Winding Road to Publishing

You have a ticket to write and want to be a paperback writer.

Okay. Yeah, I stole those words from the titles of songs by my favorite composers in the whole wide world. Please don't sue me!

While my husband and I were driving the hour or so it took to get to the White Pines State Park, last week, we played the old Beatles tunes, and I just automatically revised them for a possible post--this one--I thought I might do later on. But I was planning on using more titles. . . but thought I shouldn't push my luck.

So, here I am, as you know. I'm between books--waiting for second one to come out to bolster the sales of the first one. I hope that works. And have the third one done in first through 5th draft. (I kept on rewriting the first chapters while I waited for brilliance to shine on me for the rest of it--which, of course, it did and felt like a mule kicked me--er, that's a whole other story)

Meanwhile I've been in contact with another author and we sort of went back and forth about self-publishing some sort of work that might help sales of my first book. This is what she did, she told me, and it worked really well for sagging sales of her first book. She suggested I look into doing the same for my book. She made suggestions; Amazon, Barns & Nobel and Smashwords. All free for the work of formatting by you, and downloading and the whole wad. I wonder what sort of cover I'll be able to find. The whole idea I'd be in absolute control over every part of this has me somewhat ecstatic, but I may have to get a faster Internet connection before I do this. Well, all in good time.

I went to Smashwords first to see their site and how things work there. I was glad to see that they've updated just this year to accommodate Open Office users. I'm still checking things out. It looks rather easy and affordable--nothing--so that I could just get something out there without putting money up for it. I see that a lot of authors out there are doing things this way, some exclusively, and some as a side venture to help bolster sales.

You see, I've done the self-publishing thing before, so I know that you have to do the formatting--been there done that. But it cost me, and I'm just not sure I want to do that any more. The cost of going with a self-publisher who does all the work for you can get up there, and once you get all your friends and neighbors to buy it, the sales just drop out of sight. Spell of the Black Unicorn is somewhere at #10,000,000 something on Amazon right now. It has nothing to do with how good or bad it is, it's mearly that I have no way of advertizing it, I have no platform, and at the time, I didn't have a presence like I do with my vampire novels. Plus, it's not in ebook format, thus the $17.95 price probably puts people off, and I have no control over that at all.

When I went into writing my Vampire Ascending, it turned out I had a bit too much going on, it was way too long. I had to cut something from it. It was, I realized, a book unto itself, what I did cut out. I had thought of doing something with it. It would have Sabrina and Dante in this, and be a murder mystery. Yes, I thought last night, I could easily find the bits an pieces, and then work on patching them together. It would probably take me all summer, but maybe I could do this. I'm still in the "can I, do I want to" stage.

Also, I'd have to figure out if Dante is who he is in Vampire Ascending, or a little further up the development line character-wise. I'm thinking I could play with ideas for a while before I decide one way or another.

My working title is "The Werewolf and the Windego". Whatever a Windego is, my hope is that it will gnaw at you and you'll have to read to find out.

I'm playing with the idea of whether I want to bring Vasyl into this. I'm not sure. Do I want to put him in here as Sabrina's lover? I could do that. As a matter of fact I've got some scene or two that were rather hot, that I took out of second book. Hmmm.  Vasyl as Sabrina's vampire lover with a few hot scenes thrown in for good measure?What do you think?