Lori Ann Stephens's Blog, page 12

Numero Uno

YA Highway is beckoning me again:What's your numero-uno reason for writing?
I'll bet there's some sort of high-minded, acceptable list of answers to this sweet little, seemingly innocuous question. I'll bet there are plenty of creative writing teachers who'd cluck their tongues at the answers we give.  But that's why I like YA Highway.  No high-falutin' rigid readers who laugh with derision at our perplexing answers.  Here's mine:
Numero-Uno: Because I need to write.
That's it.  I need to.  I feel cranky when I go to long without writing.  My bones ache with jealousy when someone tells me all about her week of writing in a French castle (yes, Amy, I'm talking about you). Or that weekend at the Writers' Conference in D.C. or Chicago, or the Writers' Retreat for a blissful week in the woods.  I nod and cheer and say, "You go, Girl!" but they can't hear the envy in my bones go "creak!" 
Writing or rewriting a page, and then another page, or even merely a paragraph--it's like a drug, folks.  Like an anti-depression regimen.  Like caffeine.  Sometimes it gives me the jitters in a bad sort of way, but most of the time, I leave my writing desk and my heart feels two sizes bigger in a very good--I'm-ready-for-the-world--kind of way. 
I think many writers feel this way.  It's a bond we share.  We nod our heads sympathetically when  our fundamental needs aren't being met.  Writing-time needs.  Thank God my partner understands this. 
Right now, he's off to Canada for a week to work on three writing projects.  I'm happy at home writing on mine.  But I'm thinking I'm due soon for a trip myself, sequestered in an internet-free cabin, surrounded by nature? It's for my mental health after all, right?

Road Trip Wednesday's 100th birthday!

100 weeks, that is.


This week's topic is What has your writing road trip looked like so far? Excitement? Traffic Jams and detours? Where are you going next?

Now that is a timely question, as I finally, this week, laid out my exhilarating, confusing, maddening,  gleeful, heartbreaking journey to publication with a traditional small publisher over the past three years.  I put it off and I put it off because I did not want to write anything negative about the good woman who selected my book out of the slush pile and declared it the Chosen One.


But the whole point of creating this blog was to share with other writers what it's like to get your book published, and I knew--I knew--I wasn't being completely honest.  I hope others can learn something, no matter how small, about the challenges of publishing.  

Even today, I wonder if putting it on the internet will come back to haunt me. If you want to take a peek at the story, scroll back a few days in the blog archive to read about my "perilous journey."


Was it exciting? Yes! Am I still over the moon to be published? Yes!


I've finished two more manuscripts--one adult novel and one YA novel--and those babies are visiting agents. My fingers and legs and toes are crossed. In the meantime, it helps to read the success stories of other authors.  They help keep hope alive. Thanks, blogging authors!

99 Cents

The digital version for Song of the Orange Moons (thanks, ASD Publishing!) is now on sale for 99 cents!  from here
If you haven't bought the hard copy (or just want to stock your ebook library shelves), now's the time to shop.  Kindlegraph allows me to "sign" your digital book, too, if you're interested in that cool gizmo.

If you don't have a handheld Kindle, no problem!  You know that there's a free app for Macs and PCs, right? You can download books (and a lot of free one's, too) right to your laptop.  I adore my hard copy books--couldn't live without them--but the Kindle is pure fun.

Please help me spread the news.

(Go Rangers!)

Can't Put this Book Down

Literally, I've been carrying this book around with me so I can sneak in a few pages wherever I go.  (I just got back from a lovely barium swallowing test at Baylor Medical Center, and I toted this book along with me.) What book is this that I can't put down, you say?  

Steplings, the new novel by C.W. Smith.

It's not YA, but it is literary fiction about two kids (18 and 11 yrs) who run away from home and the Amber Alert that follows.  It's about a family that was already unraveling paradoxically twining together and falling apart at the same time.  I'm engrossed with Jason and Emily.  I'm 3/4 finished and, as soon as I'm finished with this post, you know what I'm going to do? The book's right here to the right of my laptop.

Thanks, C.W., for a great story.  I hope lots and lots of people buy this book.
Here's the rather fantastic book trailer.  Many of you know how hard it is to create (or find) a book trailer that isn't cheesy. This one rocks.

The Perilous Journey to Publication: I Come Clean

I've been putting off and putting off this post, even though I need to writeit, if only to shed some light on the risks of publishing with small presses.So, let me preface this rather epic post by saying that I'm not publishing thisas "payback" or out of malice or spite. In fact, the only feelings Ihave now are bewilderment, a vague sense of loss, gratitude, and plain oldsadness.  Does that qualify as "ambivalence"?  Read, andyou'll understand.

This is the journey of Song of the Orange Moons, my debut novel fromNovember of 2010.

If you've done any research online about the publishing industry (and I'msure most writers have), you know that publishing with the traditional bighouses is almost impossible without an agent, and far from guaranteed withone. Many years ago, circa 2005, I had an agent for my manuscript of Orange Moons. No contract, just severallunches over which he encouraged me to write two more chapters (I did), and wechatted about his family, his own manuscript-in-progress, and where he'd sendmy novel.  He eventually sent it to three or four of the big presses, whoin general liked the manuscript, but thought it wouldn't move (sell) in thebookstores. He suggested that I "turn it into a Young Adultnovel."  At that time, I knew nothing about Young Adult novels andsaid I didn't think that would be possible. Not with this book. That was ourlast lunch.  Dead end.  Amicable parting of ways.

I made a meager attempt at finding another agent, but the process seemed solong and exhausting that I wondered if sending it directly to the publisherswould be more efficient. (And I felt jaded by my first relationship with anagent.) I researched the small and large presses that received submissions (notmany, folks!) and carefully packed and stamped 20 envelopes with thepersonalized query letters and partials or full ms, according to the publisher'spolicies. 

This. Was. Exhausting.

And expensive.

Six months later, after a few requests for full manuscripts and a fewletters telling me that the press had gone out of business, I had responsesfrom all 20 places. One press had seriously considered the book, but eventuallydeclined, sending me detailed, multi-page, single-space rejection letters fromtheir three readers.  Heartbroken, Iliterally shelved my manuscript in the living room bookshelf on the tip-topshelf.  Out of sight.

When my devoted partner figured out that I'd given up on writing, he insistedthat I slap some postage on my manuscript and send it out to 20 morepublishers. Ugh.  I did it, this timeignoring the SASE for return, and scouring the Internet and books forpublishers who were actively and currently accepting unsolicited manuscripts. I barely found 20 and sent my submission envelopes out in the world again.  My partner was right: I did feel a littlebetter. I felt the glimmer of hope that my manuscript would find a home.

A few months later, I had 20 more rejection letters in my binder. At least,I thought I did. While I was on campus one morning, my phone rang, and therewas this woman named Miriam who was telling me how much she loved my beautifulbook and asking me if she could publish it. I was ecstatic.  All I could think of was, "I'm inheaven!  And heaven is a place calledBlooming Tree Press!"

I've told this story before, way back in the early days of this blog.  What I didn't tell is the experience after Isent my signed contract for the novel. It has been, in a word, frustrating. Sometimes maddening. Blooming Tree Press was an established publisher ofChildren's and YA books.  My novel was tobe the debut of their Adult line of books. Miriam had big dreams: she said she wanted to publicize this book asthough it weren't from a small press, but from one of the big ones.  Except, of course, I would need to cover allmy travel expenses.  I got that.  I understand that even authors with bigpresses must often create and finance their own book tours. But after two yearsof waiting for the book to finally go to press, and another year of the bookbeing "in press," I was so utterly in the dark about everything—what I wassupposed to be doing and when and where—that I was lost and nervous and growingpositively irked.  I did what I thought Ineeded to do: create an author website, join Facebook, create an author page onFacebook. Tweet.

How well a debut novel sells is vital to the success of a novelist.  My second novel might never get a glance froma publisher based on the sales record of my first novel.  Some writers are completely shut out from allthe publishers.  Such are the tales Iheard from other authors.  So I knew thatthis novel needed reviews, and lots of them, and sales, and lots of them, if Iwere to ever hope to publish the second novel I was working on.

I called and emailed Blooming Tree, trying to figure out some solid datesabout the Advanced Reader Copies, about the official publication date, abouthow to get reviewed by Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus and the others. Miriam wasbusy, no doubt, with other authors, and what I thought was a small publishingfirm became startlingly clear that Miriam was it.  Miriam was the only one doingeverything.  That was why I so rarelycould get hold of her.

It was clear though our few conversations that her original plans to make abig splash with the book were no longer possible.  It was too expensive for her to advertise thebook in the NY Review of Books andother outlets, and she didn't have the time. So I did it. All.

I hired an outside publicist to help organize a blog tour.  One month of publicity cost half my monthlypaycheck. I sent copies of my ARCs to 25 different reviewers and a fewcontests.  I wrote emails to bookreviewers and asked if they'd be interested in reviewing my debut novel.  I looked up the submission policies to Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus, and pretended I was some lackeyat Blooming Tree suggesting that they review book. Because my ARCs were mailedto me about two weeks before the release date of the book, three months toolate according to the big reviewers' policies, I was up a creek called shit.

All of this took lots and lots of postage. That was only a small part of theinvestment.  I set up a tour to Chicago,paid my ticket and arranged a few readings and stayed with a dear friend, onlyto find out the ARCs had not even been printed (although they were "beingprinted as we speak" weeks before). I set up my big book launch, only to findout that the hardbacks wouldn't make it to Barnes & Noble for the partybecause they were still being printed (another snafu by the publisher).  The book distributors had to overnight theboxes to the store, and they arrived on the afternoonof the party.  I was a nervous wreck.

Amid all the hubbub during the month prior to publication, I had very littlecontact with Miriam.  I had almost noneafter the publication.  I emailed her thelink to my Publisher's Weekly review,something I was astounded by. And she emailed me her congratulations, butdidn't answer any of my questions, like how did she like my second novelmanuscript I sent her.  (She hadexclusive first rights to my second novel.) To be honest, I hoped she didn't want it.  I was so frustrated with the lack ofcommunication that I was truly ready to move on to another publisher.  With an agent this time.

Over the past year and a half, I went through a range of emotions.  Anger at her lack of commitment to this book,gratefulness that she published it when no one else would, hysteria when my hugeinvestments to publicize the book were slammed by the reality that the bookwasn't really "in press" yet or anywhere near it. I stored this bubble ofresentment at being deceived, until I'd run into someone who'd congratulate meon getting published, considering how very difficult traditional publishing isthese days, at which point I'm weakly smile and feel humbled.

During the six months post-pub date, I left messages and emails about someimportant details, one of which was my payment, which was to be sent upon thepublication of my novel, but that I never received.  She responded only two or three times, makingpromises to look into matters.

And then, this summer, Miriam finally called me back.  I had emailed her to ask about digital rightsand film rights to the book—too see if she was doing anything, anything, had any plans with this book. She finally, finally called me back withterrible news.

This news she'd needed to share for a long time, and was finally calling totell me.  In fact, she'd been makingcalls to her authors, two or three a week, because the news she had to sharewas too difficult to tell too many times in one week. I won't go into specificshere, because this concerns her private life. But she has been very ill, and her disease has progressed to a statethat she has to close her business. She wants to spend her remaining time withher family, etc.
I listened to her tell me that all the rights to the book revert back to me,that I can purchase as many of the remainders as I want, that I can release aneBook immediately, that she is not renewing her 2-year dues to the nationwidedistributor because she doesn't know if she'll be around then, so no one willbe able to order from Amazon or Barnes & Noble because there will be nodistributor for the books, and all I kept thinking was, "F*cking unfair for herand f*cking unfair for me and this whole unfair scenario is just crap."  I couldn't be mad at her anymore.  You can't be mad a person who is terminallyill. I felt horrible for her and for her family.  And I thought, "What a sad, short life forthis little novel, too."
I understood why the entire publishing experience had been so chaotic.  My publisher's life had been spinning out ofcontrol, and she was trying to balance her health with a one-woman publishingcompany.

I don't know if this is a cautionary tale. I feel mainly sad about her situation. Sad that my book never really had a chance to sell copies.  I'm proud to have learned how to request reviews and how to set up a book tour; I'm incredibly thankful to the online community of writers who have shared their stories and wisdom as I trolled the internet for hope.  I don't know what "lesson" I've learned otherthan I'm determined to get an agent for my next novel.  An agent who will know the field infinitely betterthan I and has access to more and larger publishers. This past year has been alearning experience.  I am still gratefulthat Miriam published my book.  It'sbeautiful, and I'm still hopeful that she'll send me the remainders I orderedfrom her over a month ago.

But I'm not counting on it.  It willbe a year next month, and I still have not received a check for thepublication, a royalty statement, or any paperwork of sales figures. I am inthe dark about the future of Orange Moons.

The digital book is now out, and I'm glad that it has been getting somebeautiful reviews.

And I have two completed novel manuscripts out to agents who have requestedfull manuscripts.  So there's light inother places, and I've moved into it. I suppose I wanted to finally tell the completestory that this blog promised to tell: the real journey this author took withthe little press that loved her novel.

Road Trip Wednesday

(Road Trip Wednesday is a 'Blog Carnival,' where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.)

This week: What are your all-time favorite book covers?

How about this beauty?
And something about this one (although not YA) always makes me laugh:

Could have something to do with the author...I absolutely adore Imaginary Girls, but someone on RTW beat me to it:
I'm not the average consumer, apparently.  Because I read almost solely on personal recommendations, I tend to ignore the covers and focus only on what's inside. And when you've read a phenomenal book, it's hard to divorce the cover from the the story inside that moves us.  (Which is why I still love the old Pride & Prejudice and Emma novel covers with the painted portraits.)



But I do appreciate the fact that book covers are no longer mere advertisement; they've become original art in their own right.

Déjà vu

After watching this, I'm struck: maybe I didn't just write a YA novel manuscript...
(Fantastic work, YA Highway Channel.)

On the Winner and on Pledging

On the Winner: Congrats to the winner of the Goodreads Book Giveaway, Julie Donald of Missouri!

Your copy of Song of the Orange Moons is on its way to you in a pretty Priority Mail envelope. Enjoy!
Thanks to all 491 people who entered the contest.  I hope you're still inspired to read the book and review it on Goodreads or Amazon.

And on Pledging (not the Greek persuasion):
My author friend, Amy Plum, shared a link this morning that I'm passing on to you.  What a great idea: read the book before you see the film. You sign your name and pledge to read the book whenever humanly possible. 

Another author friend, Matt Bondurant, will see his novel come to life via Hollywood in the 2012 film adaptation of The Wettest County in the World, starring Shia LaBeouf. But do you see Bondurant's name credited on sites like this or this?   Breaks the heart.  It seems like a decent gesture to give the novelist credit for creating the story to begin with, because I'll bet the novelists aren't receiving the kind of grand gestures that they can deposit in the bank so they can quit their day job and write.

I'm excited about the movie, too, but I'm reading the book, which I suspect will be very different from the adaptation.

Sign the pledge.  Read the book.  You'll get smarter.

Thanks, Peeps at Goodreads!

Today is the last day of the Goodreads Giveaway.  As of now, 422 people have entered the contest for a single copy of Song of the Orange Moons.  Good luck all of you, and I hope the winner enjoys the book and reviews honestly!

Another little girl and her goat

Another Road Trip Wednesday, folks(From the website: RTW is a 'Blog Carnival,' where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered.)


This week's topic asks us what themes, settings, motifs, scenes, or other elements do we find recurring in our work?1. Hordes of unhappy little girls and unhappy mothers (à la Betty and Sally Draper)2. Blanket metaphors that keep creeping into my drafts (the fog like a blanket, his silence like a blanket, the humidity like a blanket, oppression like a blanket, etc.) Thanks to my beta reader, I recognize and kill those darlings as soon as they descend on me like a blanke--3. Fathers who try really hard but just don't get their daughters4. Goats.  Yes, goats. from here.5. Pride and prejudice, usually in the main character, which (I hope) gets sorted out by the last chapter6. Fingers and acute sensitivity to touching in general   
Readers, what have I missed?  If you recently read Song of the Orange Moons (or are reading it now), what motifs skulk around the pages?