Venturing Back Into the World of Self-Publishing

It's truly amazing how much the world of book publishing has changed since 1996, which is when I saw my first novel, Cold White Fury (HarperCollins) on a book store shelf for the first time. That day ranks right up there with the other all-time best days of my life and I will never forget the thrill and excitement I felt. To me, it was the beginning of a lifelong dream finally recognized. I was so proud, and happy, and full of hope. But I was also naive.

I managed to ride that wave of ecstasy for several years and it felt wonderful. I didn't mind the book signings that no one came to because there were plenty of busy ones to offset them. I didn't mind having to wait months ... no, years actually, to know how my books were selling. And when HarperCollins reorganized just before my third novel with them came out (Second Sight) and decided they weren't going to contract with me for a fourth one, I was bummed but still optimistic. My agent and I worked feverishly to shop that fourth book elsewhere, but no one would take it based on a synopsis alone; they all wanted a finished manuscript. That meant months of writing, months of reading, months of waiting, months of prep if the thing did sell, and likely years before another book would come out with my name on it. Any momentum I'd built up with the first three books would be lost.

Ever the optimist, I kept at it and wrote the book. Nearly a year later, before I finished it, my agent called me with the news that she was going to retire from the business. Now I had no agent, no publisher, and no momentum.

I decided it was a good time to try writing something different, something I'd started during the months I spent shopping the manuscript for Cold White Fury around to agents. It was a very different piece, a humorous mystery with a smart-alecky protagonist who was a nurse-turned-coroner. My funny bone needed an outlet and this was it. Then Cold White Fury found an agent and within weeks of that a publisher, and suddenly my funny bone was stagnant. I had thrillers to write. I had thrillers under contract.

My funny bone started yelling at me again when I lost my agent. I figured if I was going to break off in a new direction, this was the time to do it. I resurrected that humorous mystery, changed the setting from Virginia, which is where I lived when I started it, to Wisconsin, which is where I lived at the time. It all came together beautifully and quickly. I loved it. And I used it to start looking for a new agent. For several years I played around with some agents: one who had me change so many things in the manuscript that I didn't recognize it any more, so I bid her adieu and went back to my original product, another who made some mediocre attempts to sell the work without any success. When I parted ways with him, self-publishing was peering over the horizon and after some research and homework, I decided to self-publish the book. It sold a rousing 782 copies total and 25 of those were to me. In the end I made a small profit, but it was barely enough to buy a fancy dinner for two.

So I pulled it off the market and started the agent hunt again. This time I got lucky and my agent sold the book as part of a three-book deal a short time after I signed with her. That led to five books in the series (Working Stiff, Scared Stiff, Frozen Stiff, Lucky Stiff and Board Stiff) all with Kensington Books, plus another series with Kensington that I pitched to my editor with some guidance from my agent. Total time from when I first started the manuscript that eventually became Working Stiff to the day of its release was 14 years. And since no one remembered who Beth Amos was by then, and the earlier books that were published under that name were all out of print, I was reborn as Annelise Ryan.

I didn't give up on writing during that time. In fact, I wrote three other novels. My agent and I made some attempts to sell one of those, but it's one of those cross-genre things that editors are wary of placing. So I decided to dip my toes into the waters of self-publishing again and Nick of Time, a story of romance, ghosts, and time travel, is now available as an e-book. I'm also working on reissuing my earlier books as e-books since they were never available in that form and I have all the rights back. So for your reading enjoyment at the very reasonably price of $2.99, you can buy Nick of Time at Smashwords, Amazon, Kobo, or any other book e-tailer you like. I hope you enjoy it.

 

 

On Pause...

I've recently been "nudged" to update my blog (thank you, Patricia!) and today I finally broke down and decided to write something. Truth is, I'm writing this now because my current WIP, Lucky Stiff, #4 in my Mattie Winston series, is in pause mode. That means I'm trying to figure out where to take my characters next and, like a DVR'd show that gets interrupted, I put the work on pause and let my subconscious work it out.



I'm a very sporadic writer and I have many pauses everytime I sit down to write. What do I do when I'm in pause mode? I check Facebook for updates. I check my current Amazon sales ranking, or pub stats in Publisher Alley. I cruise through tweets. I log in to see how much of my retirement fund has disappeared this week with the stock market dives. I read and answer emails. I read and answer snail mail. I eat chocolate. I read People magazine. I make a cup of coffee. I make phone calls. I dose myself with Reddi-Whip right out of the can. I shower (good thing!) I watch a real DVR'd TV show. I torment my cats. I do a load of laundry. And on rare occasions, I update my blog.



Some people might call this procrastination. I call it writing. How so? Well, somewhere in the midst of all these other activities, that freeze frame in my mind suddenly goes into play mode and in a snap I know where my characters need to go, what they need to do. I can see it all playing out in my head and before you can say "bull crap!" I'm back into my manuscript, writing again.

It just happened again as I was writing this. Go figure. Who hit the play button???

Here is the cover for book #3 in the Mattie Winston series, Frozen Stiff, written under my pseudonym, Annelise Ryan. I like the inclusion of the Rubbish the cat and Hoover the dog, though their presence at the crime scene does make one wonder what sort of evidence contamination might occur!

And the good news is there will be at least two more books in the series. The contract has been signed, sealed, and delivered. Books number 4 (Lucky Stiff) and 5 (yet to be named) will be paperback originals.

More good news...or at least fun news, is that I will be sponsoring a contest to guess Mattie's real first name. It is revealed in Frozen Stiff but has been left out of the ARCs, so this summer readers and fans can play along and enter their guesses. The prizes? First prize is a laptop computer, the second prize will be a Nook or Kindle, and three more prizes will be awarded by random drawing from the pool of correct answers.

Stay tuned to this blog and the http://www.mattiewinston.com/ website (and Mattie's blog, which is linked on the site) for details of this contest, which is coming soon.

So You Think You Can Write

I’m a huge fan of the TV reality show, So You Think You Can Dance, and the latest season that just ended was truly one of my favorites. The talent among the contestants seemed to far surpass those who appeared in seasons past and so much of the choreography was stunningly creative, moving, and just plain fun. Throughout the season I had two favorites among the contestants, Lauren and Kent, who coincidentally ended up as the final two. By the time the finale arrived, my heart was firmly in Kent’s camp, so much so that I actually voted for the first time since I started watching the show several years ago. The interesting thing about my choice is that I had to admit Kent was slightly less proficient at his art when it came to technical skill and overall performance. Lauren didn’t make a wrong step the entire season. Her performances were all technically perfect with nary a misstep. When it came down to a question of pure skill, she was undoubtedly a better dancer than Kent. Apparently America agreed because she won, and rightfully so. Still, I was disappointed because despite the technical differences, for me Kent was a better dancer.

Why? Because of his passion: his goofy faces, his aw-shucks-down-home honesty, the raw emotion he put into his performances and interviews, and his very obvious, very passionate love for his craft. He is a talented and skillful dancer who demonstrated incredible grace and versatility with every performance. His performances made me smile, they made me cry, they made me rewind and watch them over and over again (I can’t bring myself to delete the show where he and Neil performed the Travis Wall routine about the two friends and I’ve watched it dozens of times). Kent might not have been as technically perfect as Lauren—due to his small stature, lifts were sometimes awkward for him and communicated far ahead of time—but they were always heartfelt, soulful, and stirring. In contrast, Lauren’s performances were fun for me to watch—she’s adorably cute, has some smoldering sex appeal, and her moves were almost always technically perfect. But that was the problem—it all felt technical. It felt sterile and unemotional. She didn’t make me laugh, or cry. Nor did I feel compelled to rewind and watch again. So while I will admit she is a slightly better technical dancer than Kent at this point in their lives, I’d prefer to watch Kent perform—gaffes and all—any day of the week.

Why does all this matter and what does it have to do with writing? Well, I’ve discovered I am more than willing to forgo technical perfection in exchange for a little more meaning, emotion, and soul in my art. Any book I read that taps into my emotional side will likely be more enjoyable for me, even if the craft isn’t executed with technical perfection. In fact, I likely won’t notice some of the gaffes because I’m so enthralled with the story, and if I do notice them, I typically shrug them off. I’m much more likely to ignore the occasional clunky sentence, or misused word, or grammar goof if the story grabs my emotional lapels and pulls me up close. I think this emotional element is why certain books (The DaVinci Code, Twilight, Harry Potter) take off and achieve phenomenal success despite less than stellar prose.

It’s a lesson to keep in mind with my writing. I strive to find ways to deliver that emotion and passion, to my readers. I want to stir them, move them, make them think, laugh, and cry. I want to grab them by the lapels and get in their faces, but also leave them feeling satisfied and fulfilled when I finally let them go. I want them to feel that their artful souls have been nourished. I want them to be entertained. Yet “entertained” is considered a dirty word by some in the literary world.

So for me, the challenge is in figuring out how to tap into my readers’ emotions. I know I’m not a great literary writer. I know I often use the wrong form of the verb lay. I know I occasionally think a word means something it doesn’t. I know I have an unexplainable love affair with em dashes that drives my copyeditor crazy. The key is in learning to strengthen and overcome these weaknesses, but also to keep my readers enthralled, involved, and yes...entertained so they’ll overlook my gaffes and come away from their reading experience feeling content and fulfilled.

So my question to the rest of you writers out there is: do you think this emotional element is key? And if so, what do you do to achieve it?

Sheesh, I'm a slacker!

I can't believe it's been six months since I last posted here. I've thought about doing it often enough but every time I did, it was, "maybe tomorrow." Looks like tomorrow never came, or rather it came a few months late.

So a brief update:

The Hollywood thing isn't happening...no big surprise there. It seems that the new TNT show "Rizzoli & Isles" starring Angie Harmon, which is based on Tess Gerritsen's novel character, and a show called "Body of Evidence" planned in the fall by ABC were already slotted and too similar. So WORKING STIFF's Hollywood career is on the shelf. It's kind of ironic given that Tess Gerritsen was kind enough to give me a rocking cover blurb for the book. I'm disappointed, of course, but I'm also looking forward to watching "Rizzoli & Isles" since I've been a Gerritsen fan for years and know the characters well. Plus I've always liked Angie Harmon and the actress who is slated to play medical examiner Maura Isles is another favorite of mine--Sasha Alexander, an NCIS alum.

Back to earth and book stuff...SCARED STIFF has been edited every which way, is in production, and is scheduled for release on August 31st (that's the cover up there). Also coming in August is the paperback version of WORKING STIFF. And book #3 in the series, which I think will be titled FROZEN STIFF, is written and ready to send off to my editor as soon as my agent gets done reading it and giving me her feedback.

I'm planning a fun contest to coincide with the release of SCARED STIFF, giving fans a chance to guess at Mattie Winston's real first name, which is revealed in book #3, but hinted at in both WORKING STIFF and SCARED STIFF (no purchase will be required to enter but reading the books might give you an edge). I'm still on the fence for a first prize, which will be a Kindle, a Nook, or an iPad. But there will be plenty of other fun prizes, too, so stay tuned and bookmark http://www.mattiewinston.com/ for future details.

To Dream The Impossible Dream

Dreaming the nearly impossible dream is what I'm doing. Recent discussions between my agent and some big names in Hollywood -- names that are associated with Emmy nominations, well-known movies, and hit TV shows -- has me daydreaming more than usual. I know from past experience -- movie options on other books that went nowhere, and starry-eyed hopefuls who were unceremoniously dropped to earth (wait, that was me!) -- that the likelihood of these conversations morphing into any reality is slim. And I won't know anything for sure until sometime in the spring. Still, it hasn't stopped me from imagining what could be if it did happen, especially since this time I'm closer than ever before. So I'm dreaming away and keeping my fingers crossed. I'm also hanging onto my day job. Stay tuned...

Today's Guffaw

Okay, this is danged funny: Glossary of publishing terms.

Warning: don't read while drinking.