 |
| DepositPhoto |
“If I could go back to my debut year…” Um, why on Earth would I want to do that LOL?
My debut year was fun and sparkles and I DID get The Call,
the actual CALL, from Angela James at Carina Press, to say they wanted to
acquire Priestess of the Nile, which
I had sent in response to a note on their website about wanting Ancient World
romances. I was basically incoherent on the phone with Angela that day because
I was so excited and thrilled.
That first year was so much fun because I had no
expectations, knew nothing really about
the publishing industry or the ebook industry – Priestess came out as an ebook and an audiobook in 2012 but I did
understand that status from the getgo (i.e. there’d be no print version) – and it
was all fun and exciting. I think my view of the publishing world was still
somewhere between Jo of Little Women up in her attic writing for a penny a word
and Joan Wilder in “Romancing the Stone”, you know? I didn’t belong to RWA, I
wasn’t in any author groups online, I only knew one other published author at
the time.
I had a fulltime career at the NASA/Jet Propulsion
Laboratory on the business side of the house and this, having Priestess published, was a lifelong
dream for me. In 2012 I also self-published Wreck
of the Nebula Dream (“Titanic in space…”), so there I was with not one but
two books out there and more to come in due time, I was sure. I had READERS. I
had REVIEWS, even one from RT magazine. Oh my gosh.
In that debut year I learned about blogging, the ins and
outs of social media, fell in love with twitter, worked with a fabulous editor (Allison Dasho),
I joined RWA, I went to the national conference and met PEOPLE, I had a Carina
Press balloon on my signing table, the Harlequin people came and talked to me,
I was actually in the same room as Nalini Singh, signing books (the conference
was in Anaheim so there were local people I l knew who came, who kindly had me
sign for them). I was too shy to actually approach Nalini, which is amusing to
me now and she is the sweetest person, easy to talk with. Her table was
actually EMPTY of fans for a few minutes while she sat there and I was still
too shy to walk up to talk to her! But then I was just in awe of breathing the
same actual air as my favorite author.
I met JEFFE! And she was such a mentor to me, helping me
figure out various things…she was very patient with all my questions.
So that debut year was all kinds of fun for me, in part
because I didn’t have expectations about anything. I didn’t want an agent. I
wasn’t angling for a contract with a traditional publisher. I had no thought of
being able to quit the challenging and enjoyable day job. I was simply basking
in the state of actually being a published author.
Now, if it was all so much fun, then you may ask why I don’t
want to go back to 2012?
Well, I only got the two books out that year. I wrote
another one for Carina, got a Revise & Resubmit letter, which was something
of a surprise to me (welcome to the world of publishing LOL), and even after
they did acquire it, the process to get it published was wayyyy longer than ever-impatient I expected…I decided self-publishing was my thing and scifi romance
was my primary genre…I got bitten by the bug to hey, maybe work up to being a
full time author (which took me three more years to accomplish)….
So the debut year was a very special time in my life and my
memory, and I cherish all the experiences but I have no desire to relive it
again. I like new adventures. I’m happy with having more detailed and concrete
goals as an author, I like being deep in the scifi romance author community, I
love self-publishing…lots more stories to tell and I’m always moving forward.
But thanks again to Carina Press for my start, and for the
memories!
