Laura DiSilverio & the unexpected silver lining to her adventure in self-publishing

HALLIE EPHRON: Talk about reinventing yourself! The first book by Laura DiSilverio that I read was one from her Swift Justice series with a delightfully wacky pair of female detectives (I remember thinking: Cagney & Lucy!) A ton of books later, last year I was blown away by her RECKONING STONES, a riveting, thought-provoking standalone.

After that...

Laura, shapeshifter that she is, talks about her dystopian YA trilogy, INCUBATION, and her strange and wonderful (and frequently frustrating and demoralizing) journey through the world of writing and publishing

LAURA DiSILVERIO: Some of you probably know me as the author of 17 traditionally published crime fiction novels--18 if you count the forthcoming THAT LAST WEEKEND (Sep 2017). You may not know that I have also written a Young Adult (YA) dystopian trilogy.


Taking the Plunge

Yup. About this time last year, I decided to dip my toes in the self-pubbing waters to see if there was more money in that ocean. (Did I mention I'll have two kids in college come August? Money matters.) I self-pubbed the first book in my Incubation Trilogy. (More about the trilogy at the end--this post is about following dreams and perseverance and the serendipity that happens because you've put in the work and positioned yourself to succeed. Cue "La-La Land" soundtrack.)

Reality Bites

My agent, who told me dystopia was dead, had shopped Incubation to about four editors who all told us dystopia was dead. I loved, loved, LOVED this series, so I swallowed hard and made the decision to self-pub. INCUBATION went on sale in April 2016 to rave reviews and disappointing sales.

You read about how hard it is to get a book discovered in the vast ocean of self-pubbed books, but until you put a book out there, you don't understand how hard it really is. I've had trad pubbing success--national bestseller status, awards, and all that hoo-hah--but it didn't matter. Relatively few people found INCUBATION.

The same held true when I pubbed INCINERATION and REGENERATION later in the year. Let's just say I wasn't paying for tuition out what I was making on the trilogy--I was maybe paying for textbooks.

Everything Will Be Okay in the End--If It's Not Okay, It's Not the End

You knew there was a "however," right? My agent gave Incubation to her foreign rights person to take to the Frankfurt Book Fair and, lo and behold, we sold the French language rights for the first two books to a French publisher for a five figure advance against royalties.

Whoo-hoo!

My self-pubbing experiment was now well in the black, potentially providing a profit equal to my traditionally published books, although it hadn't ended up there the way I expected.

Who knows? It may be a blockbuster in France, and then a producer will come looking for the movie rights . . . I'll keep you updated as this story unfolds.

What I've Learned (and It Wasn't All in Kindergarten)
- If you love something you've written, don't abandon it because an agent, editor or industry big-wig says it's out of favor or unpopular. A great story will find its audience.

- There are many routes to publication these days --and to financial success.

- Having industry connections--an agent, in my case--helps. There are things they can do for you that you almost certainly can't do for yourself, like foreign sales.

- Work your butt off, practice your craft obsessively, network and market, and be open to capitalizing on opportunities that arise, even if they're not the ones you expected.

- Celebrate all of it. It's a crazy, exhilarating, and mad, mad, mad, mad publishing world.

I'd love to hear about strange or unexpected twists in your professional journeys--in publishing or other endeavors--if you want to share them in the comments.

For any Jungle Red reader who is interested in reading and posting an Amazon review of Incubation, I will send you a Kindle copy if you email me at ldisilverio AT gmail DOT com.

INCUBATION by Laura DiSilverio

Bio-chemistry whiz Everly Jax wants one thing: to know who her parents are. Raised with other repo kids in InKubator 9, she has pinned her hopes on Reunion Day, the annual event where sixteen-year-olds can meet or reunite with their parents. When her Reunion Day goes horribly awry, she and her pregnant friend Halla escape the Kube, accompanied by their friend Wyck who has his own reasons for leaving.

In a world where rebuilding the population is critical to national survival, the Pragmatist government licenses all human reproduction, and decides who can--and must--have babies. The trio face feral dog packs, swamp threats, locust swarms, bounty hunters looking for "breeders," and more dangers as they race to Amerada's capital to find Halla's soldier boyfriend before the Prags can repo her baby and force the girls into surrogacy service.

An unexpected encounter with Bulrush, an Underground Railroad for women fleeing to Outposts with their unlicensed babies, puts them in greater peril than ever. Everly must decide what she is willing to sacrifice to learn her biological identity--and deal with the unanticipated consequences of her decisions.

Laura DiSilverio
A retired Air Force intelligence officer, Laura DiSilverio is the national bestselling and award-winning author of 20 mystery, suspense and young adult sci-fi novels. Library Journal named her most recent book, Close Call, one of the Top Five mysteries of 2016, and The Reckoning Stones (2015) won the Colorado Book Award for Mystery in 2016. 

Eleven Minutes

ROSEMARY HARRIS: My husband recently told me about an article he'd read.
He does this all the time - usually when I reading something else...but I digress.

When I thought I might post something on JR about it I asked him for documentation and he cited the Wall Street Journal (I couldn't find it in their archives but did find it on the highly-respected website OMG Facts! It's possible that hubby actually reads OMG facts but I doubt it.)

Anyway, apparently studies have shown that in a standard 3 hour baseball game there is really only about 11 minutes of actual playing time. I have long believed that baseball games (much as I love my Yankees and Mets) are riddled with long stretches of grown men spitting or scratching themselves and announcers reduced to filling air time by saying "our producer's lovely wife Jeanette just gave birth to twins," and "Paul O'Neill's son just became a doctor.") But really...only 11 minutes?

It seems the same is true for NFL games.

But they're running back and forth the entire length of a football field or baseball diamond! How can this be? Well. There's a lot of standing around and talking. Switching teams.  Pre and post-actual playing time.

Like a lot of things. Kayaking for example - the gear, the loading, the drive, the landing. Actual time in the water? An hour and a half usually...for an all-day outing.

Then there's sex. Do we even want to go there? Let's just say for most men (not you honey!) 11 minutes is generous.

So what about writing? I shudder to think what the ratio of non-writing to writing time is. Standing around and talking. Switching teams. I don't spit but I have scratched.  
At a time when writers are also publishers, publicists, marketers, travel agents and shipping clerks it's sometimes scary how much time is spent on non-writing activities.

Any guesses? What's your ratio?

(I was going to run a pic of a baseball diamond but then I found the Derek Jeter pic and he's such a cutie...please g-d let's never find out that he's taken performance-enhancing drugs.)

New Product Alert!!

ROSEMARY HARRIS: Roach motels, flash drives, those wine bottle openers with the two side thingys. Flat irons, Arm & Hammer Baking Soda toothpaste and Yves St Laurent's Touch Eclat. Suitcases with four wheels...
What do these things all have in common? In their own small ways they've changed my life for the better.

When I had my first apartment in Brooklyn you couldn't pay me to get up in the middle of the night and walk into my kitchen. Heaven knows what I would have found. Enter Roach motels. OMG you could kill them without ever seeing them!
The toothpaste - my mother always bought Colgate..hated the taste...wow, this new stuff tastes pretty good!
Every once in a while something comes along that isn't just more of the same. We're not talking about the telephone or computers (or fire!) But sometimes a new product REALLY makes things easier, more fun, mo' better!
Sometimes the feeling wears off (as I'm afraid it will with the Green Goodness drink I've been sucking down for the past month.) But then again...some things are here to stay for me...like BB cream and Dannon's Lit and Fit Greek Yogurt.
What new products changed your lives??

RHYS BOWEN: The one that comes immediately to mind is the portable hair dryer. When I was a child hair washing meant walking around with wet hair for hours, which wasn't fun in the cold house I grew up in, OR sitting under my mother's hair dryer, which was a giant hood thing and took hours too.
I remember getting my first transistor radio when I was a kid. Magic. Portable magic. (I realize as I write that I am dating myself horribly. Next I'll be saying I remember the day they discarded corsets. Actually my very proper aunt sent me money for my fortieth birthday telling me to get myself fitted for a good corselet as after forty the figure starts to sag).

ROSEMARY: Rhys, they're back! Only they may be called merry widows or bustiers...your aunt was ahead of her time.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: SPANX. Best shapeware ever. I think it's Rhys' corselet for the 21st century. Hold everything in place, and it's relatively comfortable to boot. And - this isn't terribly new, but it's become widespread in the last twenty years - remote keyless entry for cars. Remember what it used to be like juggling a bag of groceries on one arm and a squirming kid in the other while you hunted for the right key on your chain? Or trying to jam the key into an ice-encrusted, frozen-over lock? Searching up one row and down another in a dark parking lot? Thos automatic key fobs are a great boon to womankind. 

LUCY BURDETTE: This isn't very creative, but all I can think of is how much I love my iphone. I love being able to take pictures and send them on the spot. And look at maps to see where I went wrong (although my phone has been acting weirdly on that score lately, turning the map sidewise, which is very confusing.) Keeping up with email and Facebook and Twitter while on the road (a mixed blessing though.)

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN : With ya, Ro, on touche eclat.  Hmm. Paying bills by internet. How about ATM's? And cabs that take credit cards? All good.   TIVO! And any DVR--and On Demand--it lets you watch any show on TV whenever you want.  The advent of time shifting has changed the world. GPS has obsoleted maps, (is that a word?), sadly, but whoa. Saved many a marriage, I bet. And gee, of course, what would I DO without my iphone. I will confess to a queasy feeling when it takes me a minute to find it--I think--oh, NO what if I don't have my PHONE? That is scary.

ROSEMARY: I would be very happy without my iPhone - but the GPS?? Game changer!!
So what new products have changed your lives? One thing that's changed the lives of a lot of writers is the ability to self-publish. Check back tomorrow as self-publishing guru Vincent O'Neill visits and gives us the lowdown on formatting your book before you self-pub!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: All those things! (Although I have to disagree with Julia on the Spanx. I think they're torture. But then, I haven't worn a corset...) And I'm with Rhys on the blow dryer, but my two cents, and I'm totally with Ro, is the FLAT IRON. From someone with hair that is too wavy to be straight, and not wavy enough to be curly, the flat iron is a godsend. Be glad that I'm not posting a pic of me without the use of my Chi. 



HALLIE EPHRON: Magic Eraser! I'm so not a neatnik, but when houseguests are coming and all the scrapes and smudges on my walls and floors seem like beacons of doom, it very nearly is magic. My immersion blender! No more having to dump hot soup into a blender where it invariably explodes scalding hot soup all over the room in order to make a potage.  What's Touche Eclat?

Welcome Guest Paulette Alden

 LUCY BURDETTE: One of things I love about the writing community is how I keep making new friends. Last winter in Key West, a friend had a little cocktail party and he introduced me to someone who was teaching the memoir writing class he was taking. He knew we'd enjoy each other's company. Paulette Alden was delightful and funny and sweet and I immediately ordered her memoir, CROSSING THE MOON. And happily loved it. So when I learned that she, an accomplished writer and teacher, was self-publishing her new novel, I knew that you would want to meet her too.

PAULETTE ALDEN: Thank you, Lucy, for inviting me to Jungle Red Writers.  

In thinking about what to say to the readers and writers of JRW, it occurred to me that I ought to say upfront that the title of my novel, The Answer to Your Question, is deceptive, suggesting as it does that the book will actually provide answers.  In fact, it raises a lot more questions than it answers.  I think in this way it differs from mystery or crime novels, which satisfy readers in the end by providing such answers as who-done-it and why. 

I can’t say that I started out to deny readers the answers. Rather, the lack of answers resulted from my own take on the world, my own sense of human nature.  This I discovered as I was writing the novel. One fascinating aspect of writing is that you find out things about yourself that you didn’t know until they come out in a story.  I found out I think that some questions are unanswerable.  

The novel started with a question: what would it be like to be the mother of someone like Ted Bundy?  I was living in Tacoma, Washington, when Bundy was first accused of the murder of young women in the area.  No one who knew him could believe that handsome, bright, personable Ted could be a killer.  The unfolding of his story was riveting, involving jail escapes, more murders, legal defense by Ted himself, constant denials by him and his family, and eventually, his execution.


I had heard that Ted’s mother worked as a librarian near where I was living.  I never met her, but I would often think about her, wondering what it would to have this bright, promising son accused out of the blue of murder.  That became one genesis of the novel.  I would create a character whose son was accused of murder.  This despite the fact that not only had I never been the mother of anyone accused of murder, I had never been the mother of anyone.
 

Another character came into my head.  Jean is seventeen, pregnant, Southern, on her own in Tacoma while her husband is serving in Viet Nam.  A simple-wise naïf.  She “imprints” on Inga at the library where they work, drawing her into an unusual friendship.  The plot element is Ben, the son, who abducts Jean during the novel.  

Though Ben started out based on Bundy, at some point I decided I didn’t want to write about a psychopath.  Too boring, too one-dimensional, really.  I thought of my Ben as a more complex person, with factors which we (or at least I) might not be able to fathom.  Here my view of human nature made itself known.  We can’t always know why people-- even ourselves—do the things we do.  This is true of all the characters in the book.  To me the greatest mystery is the human heart, and it can’t be completely understood.  

I read a piece in The New York Times recently by Andrew Solomon, reflecting on Adam Lanza and the New Town tragedy.  He spent hundreds of hours over eight years interviewing the parents of Dylan Klebold, convinced if he dug deeply enough into their character, he would understand why Columbine happened.  He came to view them as not only inculpable, but as “admirable, moral, intelligent and kind people” whom he would gladly have had as parents himself.  Knowing Tom and Sue Klebold only made Columbine “far more bewildering” and forced Solomon to acknowledge that “people are unknowable.”

When I read that, I understood all the better what was behind my novel, even if I hadn’t always known it when I was writing it. We want answers because they make us feel we’re in control, when so often in life we’re not.  

Do you feel that “people are unknowable”?  Are you looking for questions or answers in the novels you read?  Have you had the experience when reading or writing something in which you understand or discover something about yourself that you hadn’t realized before? 

Lucy: thank you for visiting us Paulette. JR readers--Paulette will be stopping in today to chat with us. Her new book THE ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION can be found here. And visit her blog on writing, books, and the unexpected journey to self-publishing here.

Adventures in Self-Publishing

ROSEMARY HARRIS:  If anyone had told me five years ago - or even two  - that I would be self-pubbing a book, I would have said Absolutely Not! In fact, even a few years back there was still the faint whiff of disapproval or sympathy regarding self-pubbed authors.  And I was on the fringes of that camp.

I didn't come to my decision on a soapbox ranting about the evils of NY publishing.  I had - and still have - a great agent - and I've had four books traditionally published, including the one I have just self-pubbed in paperback. My first three books were hard/soft with MacMillan. Originally Slugfest, the fourth book in the series was to have been released in paperback by the hardcover publisher. There it was...listed on Amazon with a March 29, 2012 release date. My agent and editor confirmed it. I planned Spring 2012 accordingly.

And then, I got the news that they had changed their minds. O-kaaaayyyy. The reasons are varied and are best told at the bar at Bouchercon, but I didn't see why I shouldn't try my hand at self-publishing. All of the others had had some life as pbs. I wouldn't have the advantage of publishing the ebook, the original publisher had retained those rights, so I wouldn't be able to give my book away for free or sell it for .99 and then claim it was a bestseller. I was going the route that conventional wisdom said was a dead end - trade paperback publishing.

I investigated both Lightning Source and CreateSpace and truth be told their numbers, offers and potential were very similar. I chose CreateSpace because their website was slightly easier for me to negotiate, but that might not be the same for everyone.

They offered three cover design options which basically allow you to have as much or as little help designing your cover as you like. I took the middle road. I found the artwork, wrote the back cover copy and communicated via email with a designer who made numerous changes at my request. I'm pretty happy with the cover although if I had it to do over I might have made the title bigger (tough to do with an eight letter word but elongated type might have helped.)

Then I had to decide on price. If I wanted to avail myself of CS's Expanded Distribution (and not lose money on every book sold) I'd need a cover price of $11.99. Expanded distribution would enable me to be listed on Baker&Taylor's website and Ingram's. There was also the possibility of a sale to B&N. But no guarantees. And no salesperson except for me. And I'd be busy trying to let consumers know that the book was now available in paperback. If I said no to Expanded Distribution, I could go out with an $8.99 price point - more consumer friendly and more competitive with other cozy or light mystery titles - and it was trade, not mass market sized. So that's what I did. I felt it was a longshot that B&N was going to carry the reprint and most libraries that wanted the book had bought it in hardcover. I am sorry the book isn't going to be available through independent bookstores, but it wasn't going to be anyway (if I hadn't self-pubbed.)

The CreateSpace process was remarkable. Fast, easy and responsive to my frequent calls and emails. (There is a system in place that let's you click a button that says Call Me Now! and dang if someone doesn't call you about your book.)My out of pocket costs were about $500 - the lion's share of that being cover design, $350, so it could have been a lot less.

And it seemed to me that was a reasonable price to pay  to learn if any of the promotional activities, social media, mailings, etc. I was doing were generating sales or if it was all still about being on the front table at Barnes & Noble. Few things compare to getting that kind of exposure, but I'd only had that for one of my previous books anyway (Pushing Up Daisies) and over time the paperbacks had sold so why not try it for my self-pubbed book?

In the last two weeks since the book went live on Amazon, I've solicited reviews, written a few guest blogs, and sent out a newsletter and press release (cross your fingers that the fellow from the Washington Post likes it as much as he liked the first book which went into a second printing. And that Garrison Keillor actually reads it, likes it and chats it up!!)

I've also sent an email to about fifty writing pals asking for help in getting the word out. I confess that was a little awkward but I was absolutely heartened by the response I got (and I will flog forever books written by those authors who were kind enough to give me a shout-out!)

So that's where I am. I try not to obsessively check my CreateSpace or Amazon number but I am human. ;-) One interesting side note, sales of my first three books have seen a little spike since I started yakking about Slugfest. 

I have very realistic and modest sales expectations for the book.  If the shelf life of a traditionally released paperback is somewhere between milk and yogurt, I'm told a self-pubbed release is more like good scotch - but I certainly hope the book doesn't take 12-20 years to sell! I will make a determination on the success or failure of the project at the end of the year. And then we'll see. I still hope to have my WIP traditionally published, but I am keeping my options open.

 

So.. as Dr. Pangloss might say....any questions?

Daniel Judson - Confidence Man

ROSEMARY HARRIS: We all suffer from it occasionally. That niggling feeling. A loss of confidence. After all the hard work...can we really do this thing? Can we finish that book? Or write another? Here's JR pal Dan Judson's take on confidence, a little perspective and coming full circle. And just to prove that Dan did survive his crisis of conscience and CAN keep writing great books, he's offering a free download of one of his best books.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+gin+palace+trilogy

DJ: I started my first book on May 11, 1982.  I was all of nineteen and ending my sophomore year of college.  My summer job as a cemetery worker was waiting for me back home in Connecticut--mowing the grass, trimming hedges, and yes, digging graves.  When school ended, I headed back home determined to actually finish the book I had started.  (I’d started several books before that, the first when I was fifteen, but could never get any of them past 100 pages.) 

Upon my return home I quickly established a routine:  I would work from eight to five, eat a steak and baked potato for dinner as I watched two reruns of M*A*S*H, then write until ten or so.  Whenever it rained (and it rained a lot during the summer of ’82), I didn’t have to work, so I was free to spend all day on my book, which probably explains why, even now, thirty years later, rain often plays a part in so many of my stories.

I had a draft finished by the end of that summer, so I brought it back to school with me.  But instead of going to classes, as I should have been, I found myself staying in my dorm room and obsessively rewriting.  By the time November came around, the book was done—a whopping 180 pages, but that was the same length as The Great Gatsby, so I thought I was in good company. 

Shortly after my twentieth birthday I submitted my less-than-epic manuscript to several editors at New York publishers, having gotten their names and addresses from a library copy of The Literary Marketplace.  Then I sat back and waited for the inevitable acceptance letter, and subsequent riches.   That book never sold, of course.  But I had found what I wanted to do.  I wanted to be a novelist.  And I knew what I would have to do to make that happen.

I would have to write and rewrite obsessively. But more importantly, I would need a confidence that bordered on delusion.  I mean, I was twenty and sending my manuscript to Knopf.  Without an agent.  What the frick?

The thing about confidence, I’ve learned over the years, is that it comes and goes so easily.  Too easily.   Over the next eighteen years, I wrote nine novels, and not one of them sold.  My tenth book, though, that one felt…different.  Things were coming together in ways they hadn’t before.  I knew this was the one.

It took me over a year to complete that book, entitled The Bone Orchard.  And within a matter of weeks of my finishing it, it sold to Bantam.  (ROSEMARY: Here's a snippet of one of TBO's great reviews " THE BONE ORCHARD is an exciting private detective mystery that belies the fact that this book is D. Daniel Judson's first novel. The story line is loaded with action as readers take a tour of the underbelly of the Hamptons.")   And that, strangely enough, was when my battle with confidence really began.  I’ll spare you all the ups and downs of my career (there’s a longer version of this essay on my website, www.danieljudsonbooks.com  should anyone want the gory details), but after ten years and eight novels, I found myself, along with a disturbing number of my fellow midlist authors, suddenly unable to find a publisher. Just like I had been for eighteen years.

Frustrated, I decided to take a break from writing.  I began reading every memoir written by a WWII paratrooper that I could find.  I don’t know why I was drawn to paratroopers in particular, but I was, and I trusted that, and with each memoir I read I began to see something. Every single man had who jumped out of an airplane in the middle of the night over Nazi-Occupied France had carried with him one thing.  Confidence.

M1 rifles, trench knives, hand grenades--these were important, but what was crucial—what would ultimately make the difference—was confidence.  In fact, the courses paratroopers ran during their training weren’t called “obstacle courses”, they were called “confidence courses”. 

Now, I hadn’t given up on writing, but I had stopped.  My confidence was shot.  Publishing was in chaos.  Things were, and still are for many of us, bleak.  I had been unable to find a publisher for my last book. Did I really want to write another one? Did I even have what it took to write another?  Send it out?  Wait?  Been there, done that.

And then one morning it just dawned on me:  if some kid could jump into France to fight Nazis, then maybe, you know, I could write another book.  I mean, compared to what those who served in WWII risked—not to mention what was at stake if they failed—what, really, was I risking?

I’m not a kid anymore, but somehow that reckless confidence that had set me on my way—and that had carried me through eighteen years of rejection—returned.  Or at least enough of it did.  I’ve been working on a new project for almost a year now.  Will it sell?  I don’t know.  But I like this one.  It’s…different.  And things seem to be coming together in ways they haven’t before…

Also, it seems that traditional publishing isn’t the only game in town these days.  However you may feel about Amazon.com, it is, right now, offering “out of work” authors like me a chance to reach readers.  A lot of readers.  And new readers, too. 

I hesitated at jumping into that, though.  Maybe it was a confidence thing—my books have always benefited from the editorial process, and putting your stuff out there without that seemed…daunting.  I could of course hire a freelance editor, but there is a difference between an editor you pay and an editor who pays you.  At least in my mind there is.

But I had two early books of mine—The Poisoned Rose and The Bone Orchard, both published in 2002.  A Shamus Award-winner and a Shamus- and Barry- nominee.  I should feel confident about those, right?  And I had a third book, The Gin Palace—the final book in a trilogy, actually, that had started with Rose, and that ten years ago Bantam didn’t want, then wanted, then didn’t want again (long story).

They’d all been edited—and the first two had already been read and enjoyed (for the most part) by tens of thousands of readers.  (Heck, Bruce Willis had wanted to buy the film rights to The Bone Orchard—yet another long story.)  Why not put those up on Amazon as e-books and see what happened?

So that’s what I’m doing.  I don’t claim to be a trailblazer here—many others have made this jump before me.  (In paratrooper terms, those brave souls jumped into Normandy on D-Day, and I’m coming in around, say, Operation Market Garden.)  And while those authors did it all on their own, I’m taking advantage of a new division that sprang up at my agent’s agency—Trident E-books Operations.  The theory is, TEO will do a lot of the “leg work”—get the books up on Amazon, assist with marketing, and actively pursue all sub rights—which will/should free me up to actually write. 

Maybe that book I wrote last year and couldn’t get published will go up on Amazon soon.  Not sure whether I’ll do it through TEO or on my own—the jury is still out on that.  And maybe the book I’m working on now will go up on Amazon as well.  We’ll see.

One way or another, I’m determined to get my stuff read by readers.

Just like I was when I was nineteen.   I tend bar these days—at the same hotel, in fact, where I was working when The Bone Orchard sold.  I guess that brings me full circle.  I no longer eat steak, and my work routine has flipped; I write in the mornings instead of at night.

It’s May 2nd, 2012, which means nine days from now will be the thirty year anniversary of the day I started my first book.

And today it looks like it just might rain…    

ROSEMARY: That's a pretty inspirational story! Let's get Dan off to a good start with his Amazon promotion. (I'll be publishing with Amazon in a few weeks too!)
Read more about Dan at www.danieljudsonbooks.com

Jan Brogan Turns Back TIme!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: YAY Jan! Our very dear blog sister, Red Jan, has entered the e-world. We've been talking about turning back time this week--are you humming Cher in the background?--and our Jan has managed it! She's taken her first book, which came out---well, let her tell it. (And if the fonts look funny, what can I say. I lost the battle with Blogger.)

JAN BROGAN: So if you could go back to 1991, what would be different?

Not that much, was what I thought. I'm not the most aggressive marketer, and I had allowed my first novel, Final Copy, to sit on the shelf for four years before I sold it to Larcom Press, a small New England publisher. Before publication, it needed to be updated.

In the early and mid 1990s, fax machines weren't standard in newsrooms - and although laptops existed, they were still expensive. Cell phones were practically the size of a shoebox and still pretty rare. In fact, when my husband, who was then in the cell phone business tried to convince me that someday even stay-at-home-moms would carry cell phones, I laughed and told him he was dreaming.

So since clearly, my talents did not lie in predicting the future, I decided to head to the past.

Instead of updating Final Copy to 2001, when the book would be published, I traveled backwards and set the novel even earlier - in 1991.

Remember 1991?

George Bush, the senior, was president and he launched Operation Desert Storm.

Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested after 11 dead bodies were found in Milwaukee.

Terminator II, The Silence of the Lambs, and Thelma and Louise were big movies.

And the Internet was just beginning to take off.

But the reason I chose 1991? Final Copy, and the main character, reporter Addy McNeil, starts off with a venture capitalist plunging to his death at a biotechnology conference on the waterfront, and a lot of the story has to do with the rough and tumble world of fledgling entrepreneurs that needed millions and millions of dollars to invent sexy new drugs. I wanted to choose a year when this industry was particularly desperate.

And I might have been stuck in 1991 forever if it hadn't been for some bad luck and some good advice.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: What was the bad luck?

JAN: Larcom Press, an incredibly supportive publisher that put out quality New England mysteries, went out of just as I was finishing the sequel, A Confidential Source.

HANK: What did you do?

JAN: I cried for a while, and then I called my agent.

HANK: AW. And we can all relate, no question about that. So all worked out nicely, as things often do. SO what was the good advice?

JAN: Well, my agent thought A Confidential Source could still be sold to a bigger publisher, but wanted to call it "first in a series," which he said would generate a lot more interest from the New York publishers - so he asked me to change the man character's name.

HANK: Whoa. That's kind of weird. I mean--you'd written the entire book, heard Addy be called "Addy" again and again, and --you know, when you name a character, and there she is in print, it must be difficult to undo in your brain.

JAN: . It was remarkably hard to contemplate, sort of like renaming one of your children. But I realized that if I made that change, at least I wouldn't be stuck in 1991 forever. And my agent was right, two different New York publishers bid for the new series.

HANK: So for your reader fans--there's one little secret that may make FINAL COPY a bit of a, well, mystery. The protagonist of this book is named Addy McNeil. Your other mysteries have a protagonist named Hallie Ahern. But I must say, she reminds me just bit of Addy. What gives?

JAN: Well, yeah, now it can be told! Addy McNeil IS Hallie Ahern.

It did cause some confusion from reviewers who had liked Addy McNeil and couldn't help but recognize the similarities when Hallie Ahern made her appearance. Before I put the e-book up, I considered whether I should rename Addy McNeil and all those characters in Final Copy to be consistent with A Confidential Source.

HANK: Oh, no, talk about confusing!

JAN: But to tell you the truth, Final Copy has always been my favorite book, the one closest to my heart, and even all these years later, I still couldn't go in and change Addy's name. She was Addy McNeil in 1991, and she's Addy McNeil now.

HANK: SO, back to the future. You've written four very successful novels, all via traditional publishers. Why are you putting out Final Copy in digital yourself?

JAN: Larcom went out of business, the rights reverted to me. I sat on those rights for a long time. But now as epublishing has taken off, it seemed like the time - and an opportunity to reach more readers.

HANK: Clearly, from the amazing numbers, epublishing and self-publishing is a juggernaut. Even so, it's--still a bit cutting edge. What were the pros and cons for you--and what have you learned about the self-publishing world?

JAN: What I've learned about e-publishing so far is that there are a lot of different opinions about it. But one thing is for certain, the author has to get out on the Internet and promote it. Also, pricing was baffling me, I had no idea what to charge for the book - so I went with suggestion I found on the web, at $2.99 per E-book - which is a huge bargain compared to what my other E-books cost.

The big controversy simmering now is about whether authors should join Amazon Kindle's new Select program, which makes a self-published e-book part of a "lending library." Amazon promises authors a percentage of a pot, but to take part, you have to make the book available exclusively on Amazon Kindle. That seemed a little bit like strong-arming the author to me, so I didn't opt in.

HANK: Let me ask you: How are you different now from when you started? How do you see the mystery world now? And your place in it?

JAN: Hmmm, let's see. When I wrote Final Copy, I was more experimental, but as I got into the Hallie Ahern series, I think I began conforming to certain perceived rules of mystery writing. Now after four books, I care less about getting a book published and more about creating a new and interesting work.

HANK: What did you learn on your recent adventure in France (besides acquiring the fabulous leopard dress)?

JAN: It's only taken like....twenty years....but now I'm into the process of writing and stretching myself. And in part, I learned some of that on my adventures in France. My friends there are all writers and artists, ex-pats who lives in southern France because they live and breathe art. A friend who is the director of the art school there always makes the connection between literature and the visual arts and he was really able to penetrate this sometimes-thick head of mine.

But you cannot blame any of these friends for the inappropriate leopard dress decision - that was actually two years before that when I was in Provence with my daughter. I haven't worn that dress ONCE at home, and I didn't even bring it back to Provence last summer so I could wear it there.

Anyway, one thing I've learned about my role in the mystery world is that I'm definitely not mainstream. I'm more fringe -- and I'm really much more comfortable on those edges.

HANK:. And now, Where can people find you? Besides here, of course!

JAN: Final Copy is available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com right now and soon with smaller distributors. Here are the links, since you asked :-)

http://www.amazon.com/Final-prequel-Hallie-Ahern-ebook/dp/B006JEE8K4/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&qid=1323896627&sr=8-1

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1004534461?ean=2940013814394&itm=1&usri=final+copy

HANK: And since it's all about time here this week--just tell us when you'd rather be living--French revolution? Civil War? D-Day? Restoration? Roaring Twenties? Or--what's your choice of another time? (And one lucky commenter will win Jan's new/old/new book! )