Lisa Renee Jones's Blog, page 175

Olivia Cunning- Hottest new erotic author on the scene!

Pat C is the winner. Email me at lisarenjones@aol.com with your address.

Today we welcome hot new erotic author Olivia Cunning whose first Sourcebooks release is in stores NOW.

And her contest will run today noon Mountain time until tomorrow. I am also leaving Meagan Hatfield's comments open for her prize until noon tomorrow as well. So two chances to win. Comment on Meagan's post and on Olivia's post for that chance to win.

Olivia is giving away an autographed copy of Backstage Pass to one lucky commented– and its hot and oh so good everyone! You want this book!

Sinners on Tour (Book 1):

Backstage Pass

Available now!

Human Sexuality Professor, Myrna Evans, wants nothing but a weekend of hot, no-strings-attached sex with Sinners' sensual lead guitarist, but Brian Sinclair is looking for something more permanent than a one-night stand. Unable to compose music for months, when Brian makes love to uninhibited Myrna, he hears exquisite guitar riffs and finger-burning solos. In Myrna, he's found his muse.

Getting "The Call"

by Olivia Cunning

I think every aspiring author dreams about how they will respond when they get "the call" – the call that converts them from aspiring author to debut author.

Well, after years and years of dreaming about it, it finally happened to me. I was not prepared. Nope.

How would I describe my reaction to "the call"? Stammering idiot comes to mind. Total dolt. Poise-less git. Feel free to add insults of your own here.

Let's back up a few days.

I'd been querying my erotic romance series, Sinners on Tour, for a couple of months. Strangely, the publishers I queried kept making requests to review the full or partial manuscript, but I had absolutely no luck getting a literary agent interested. No luck. None. Zero. Maybe it had to do with the rock star heroes. I don't know.

So after a couple weeks of waiting to hear back from publishers (milliseconds in literary world time), I get an email from an editor at Sourcebooks. She was excited about the series and told me she was taking my manuscript to an editorial meeting later that week. Meaning she wanted them to buy it. No guarantees that the publishing house would be on board with her decision, but I had a foot in the door. Maybe a whole leg.

After I got over the accompanying feeling of flattery (more precisely: OMG, an editor likes my manuscript! OMG! OMG! OMG!), the panic set in. I still didn't have a literary agent, but I needed one if I did get an offer for publication. Business person, I'm not. And I don't speak legalese. Time to face facts. I needed an expert.

This meant it was time to make a few calls of my own. Email correspondence would be too slow. Spam filters eat my emails for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I couldn't risk it.

I was a nervous wreck. (Is this where I mention my phone phobia?) How many times had I been told to NEVER cold call a literary agent or a publisher? Uh, many. Many, many, many. And I don't recommend it unless your situation is as immediate as mine was. As I dial the numbers for my short list of potential agents, I'm expecting flames to shoot out of the phone and to be connected to that annoying fax-machine screech in retaliation. It turns out that literary agents are very nice people. Who knew?

Also agents are interested in reading your manuscript immediately when you have a potential sale in the pipes. If they don't think they're a good match for your work, they will still reject you. It isn't just about making a quick and easy buck to them. They really want a strong connection with your work. My respect for literary agents grew three sizes that day.

Luckily, I found a match – the wonderful Jennifer Schober at Spencerhill Associates. I knew she was the right agent for me because a) she liked my work, b) she was easy to talk to, and c) she didn't connect me to a fax machine after making me wait on hold for thirty minutes. I knew she was good luck, because while I was talking to her on the phone, I got an email from Deb Werksman at Sourcebooks. They wanted to publish my manuscript. Well, manuscripts. Five of them.

Yes, I'm still pinching myself. They bought the entire five-book series.

SO after much enthusiastic screaming at poor Jenn (who shared my excitement), I hung up and less than a minute later my editor, Deb, called. This is when my stammering began. And my gulping. I don't even know if I said a single coherent sentence. It's all a total blur. All I could think was: what a great first impression to make on your new editor.

So how did I respond when I got the call? With a complete lack of poise and grace.

At the beginning of October, my first erotic romance novel, Backstage Pass, was published. YAY! I've come a long way, baby. Well, not really. When I met my editor in person this summer, I did the whole stammering, gulping thing again. Smooth, Olivia. Real smooth. What a great second impression to make on your new editor.

Visit Olivia at www.oliviacunning.com

Meagan Hatfield's call story and sizzling hot vampires

RACHEL is the winner! Email me at lisarenjones@aol.com with your address!

Welcome to Meagan! Today's prize is a signed copy of Shadow of the Vampire(US only– not signed outside US). Just comment for your chance to win. I am going to put winners up on the last two posts by 1 mountain time today. Promise:) Today's contest runs NOON to NOON tomorrow MOUNTAIN TIME.

So onward to Meagan's call story. I am just loving reading these stories. I hope you guys are too!

Okay, I suppose I have to set up the steps before the call, so you can understand how the sale came to be.

June 2007 –

It's conference weekend for our local Wisconsin RWA chapter and for the first time we have a silent auction. I noticed the senior editor from Harlequin Nocturne was giving away a one chapter critique and instantly put my name down and something ludicrously cheap, like $8.

Over the course of the day, I noticed I kept being outbid by Lori Devoti who (for those of you who don't know) is already a Nocturne author! Well, after a brief cat fight…err, I mean very polite discussion…she took her name out of the bidding and I ended up winning the first chapter critique for $25.

I quickly polished up the chapter of my dragon-shifter romance I'd been fiddling with and sent it off, excited to finally have the opportunity for an New York editors comments and critique.

December 2007 –

The editor, Tara, emailed to let me know she had read the first chapter and really liked it. But instead of receiving a packet back in the mail with the pages all marked up and bloodied from her pen like I expected, she sent me a few things she wanted me to think about, perhaps change, asked me to write a prologue and said she wanted to see a partial. So that weekend, I wrote and trashed about six prologues before settling on one. I busted out a synopsis (I had hand written it in a notebook, but hadn't typed it in submission ready form yet) and e-mailed it all to her on Monday.

February 2008 –

When I saw an e-mail from her in my inbox this time, I almost didn't open it. No joke, I seriously had to call my cp and have her talk me through clicking open. Like many aspiring writers, I was so used to hearing "thanks, but no thanks," I was certain I'd dropped the ball somewhere along the way, the writing sucked or the synopsis had so many plot holes and clichéd storylines a rejection was waiting for me when I open that email.

Well my cp, (the supportive and smart wench that she is) happened to be right all along – it was okay to open the email, I'd written a good story and yes, Tara liked it too. She asked for a few tweaks off the synopsis and then requested the full. Now, this was the closest I'd ever been EVER and I didn't want to mess it up. So, I spent 6 weeks finishing, tweaking, adding her changes and then editing and tweaking some more. My goal was to send her the full in March and I succeeded. Yay me!

June 2008 –

Tara e-mailed to let me know she had the book with her and was going to read it asap and get back to me by the end of the week.

Two weeks later…

July 2008 –

It was 9:30-ish in the morning. I know because I had to leave work for a bit to pick my son up at his Kindergarten summer program. After dropping him at home (where yes, he has someone watching him) I drove back to work per usual. As I pulled into the parking lot of the gym, my cell phone rang. Seeing how it was a typically hectic Monday and it had been two uneventful weeks of tensing at every phone call, I didn't think anything as I picked it up. The caller ID said area code 212, which I knew from previous research was New York. Then I glanced up and the actual ID said "New York." My heart jumped. I took one deep breath and then answered. Tara was on the line. Her voice was nothing like I expected – no thick NY accent, just smooth, eloquent and friendly. She immediately set me at ease and I think the first thing I said was "It's so nice to finally hear your voice!" I walked into the club, found my boss, pointed to the phone at my ear and mouthed "New York" so she knew what was up.

Seeing how gyms are not the quietest place on earth, I went into the thankfully empty children's playroom so I could hear her. We chatted for what felt like forever before she finally said, "I had a chance to read your book and I loved it. I would like to make an offer to buy it." I'm pretty sure I squealed at a higher pitch than a chipmunk on crack, said OMG a couple times and thank you a dozen more. I wrote everything down and asked her a few questions. Thankfully, there are quite a few Harlequin authors in my local chapter, so I felt pretty confident saying yes to the offer over the phone. Actually, I think she had to ask me twice! Something like, "So do you think the offer sounds good?" I laughed and said "Of course! I would be honored to accept it."

I sat down at the small kiddy drawing table (with my knees tucked to my chest) and we spoke for about a half hour about some revisions she wanted and the following books in the series. When the call ended, I swore I could have bench pressed 500 pounds I was so excited! A few of our members who know I write, congratulated me and I spent the rest of my Monday with a huge smile on my face.

And the one crazy thought that kept slipping through my mind was I basically bought a New York contract with Harlequin for $25! lol! I mean, I didn't really…but in a roundabout way…kinda sorta…yup, I guess I did. 

Visit Meagan at http://www.meaganhatfield.com/

Devyn Quinn's awesome call story! Love this one!

Winner of prize Laurena! Laurena email me your address to lisarenjones@aol.com. Congrats!

Welcome and happy Monday! Today we have an awesome call story from Devyn Quinn and a signed copy of Siren's Call as a prize.

Just post your comment for a chance to win. I will post the winner for Cynthia Eden's prize later today on her actual post in red. Reminder– all contests run NOON to NOON MOUNTAIN TIME.

Onward to Devyn Quinn!

Call story:

For those of you who don't know me, I'm Devyn Quinn. Since 2007, I've written several titles for Kensington under their Aphrodisia imprint.

Readers familiar with Aphrodisia titles are aware these are some pretty steamy books that really push the boundaries. My style is very dark and devious and downright dirty, so imagine my surprise when I received an email from my agent saying that Lindsay Nouis at NAL was looking for some darkly themed submissions.

Since that was right up my alley, I quickly wrote up a proposal and chapter for a vampire/slayer series I'd had in mind and sent if off. An answer soon came in from the editor. She liked my style of writing and saw potential in the proposal…But she wanted something differently dark.

She wanted mermaids.

Now picture Devyn sitting there scratching her head. How had a vampire series morphed into mermaids? I emailed my agent back to make sure I was reading the note correctly.

Correct, says my agent. Dark mermaids.

Well, as someone who lives in the desert and has never seen the sea (a nice mud puddle after a rain is as deep as the water gets around here), I was stymied. I knew nothing about mermaids, their lore, legend and I hadn't even seen The Little Mermaid. What did I know about mermaids? The short answer was nothing.

Still, I am one determined cuss when presented with a challenge so I quickly went online and began to research popular lore. Armed with what I thought was a good angle, I wrote up the proposal and sample chapters and sent them back in. My agent soon got back to me with an answer from the editor. The news wasn't good. Other writers were already using some of themes I had touched on and the editor wanted something else that didn't use those elements.

Curses, thinks I. Foiled again.

So I dug a little deeper into mermaid lore (and there isn't that much to work with, folks, these being mythical creatures and all…) Finally I hit upon the lore of the Assyrian mermaid and their goddess, Atargatis. Pretty soon a new story was boiling in my head.

I rewrote and resent the proposal. Once again the wait for an answer began. A week passed. Finally an answer came in. The editor liked the idea, but wanted some changes to the chapters to clarify some points.

By this time I pretty much figured I was well on my way to getting a turn down for the series. I went ahead and rewrote the chapters as requested, adjusted the lore a bit and sent the package back to my agent for forwarding. My initial hope wasn't so much to make the sale, but perhaps the editor would be interested enough in my work to look at other proposals at a later date.

The weeks passed. And passed. And passed some more.

As much as a writer hates it, getting a rejection is disappointing. I had gone ahead and put the proposal out of my mind when my agent called. NAL had just made an offer for a three book series chronicling the lives and loves of my three mermaid sisters, and their search for their lost world even as they attempt to keep their secrets while living among humans.

Holy cow, Batman! You could have knocked me down with a feather. I was so shocked I burst into tears when my agent hung up and cried for the rest of the day. (Good news tends to do that to me) And, to tell the truth, I was more than a little scared. Writing a proposal and a few sample chapters is one thing. But writing a whole series about a world I'd just made up was one scary prospect. I didn't have a clue of where to begin. After a few days of panic, I sat down and began to write. Slowly the story of Tessa Lonike and her sisters, Gwen and Addison, began to take shape on the page…

And that is how Devyn Quinn became acquainted with mermaids.

As I continue to write the series (Siren's Surrender, book 2, will be released 2/11/2011) I've come upon some really great pieces of sea lore and other sea creatures, such as the Nyx, which I will be introducing in book 3.

Oh, and as for the vampire/slayer proposal… It did sell to NAL after all, and Darkness Descending, the first book in my "Vampire Armageddon" series will debut in August 2011!

Visit Devyn at http://www.devynquinn.com/

Let the comments begin!