A Contract!! A Contract!!!!!

I love love love publishing contracts!!!!! I hope this never stops feeling this good!!

I submitting Karma Kameleon, the sequel to A Bitch Named Karma, to my editor at Lyrical Press a couple weeks ago. She is usually pretty fast with this kind of thing, so I didn't expect it to take long to hear from her. But it still felt like forever and I told myself to just chill out. I knew she was reading it...she told me she was...but nothing. Nadda. No clue on if she was enjoying it or not. So I was super nervous.

But then the other day I checked my email, and there it was...a contract for Karma Kameleon! Usually my editor tells me ahead of time that she is recommending something for contract! But not this time....total surprise!! And I loved it!

So excited!!!

And check this out!! A local paper did a story on me! Click here!

I'm officially on vacation!!!!

Though I'm just staying home and doing nothing really, I'm still officially on vacation. We usually go away in the fall, and this year is no exception. Our late fall trip to Disney was booked months ago and we're eagerly awaiting it!!

But yes, even authors need vacations...a week to not work on writing or editing or anything. Summer is going by too fast and my kids are too little to not spend some time with them where they have 100% of me.

I decided if I made it to 40,000 words on my WIP by the end of July (which added close to 30,000 words in the month of July), I'd take the first week of August off. And I did it!! YAY!!

So today I have decided to repost one of my favorite posts since I started my blog!

The first is the day I got my publishing contract form Lyrical Press for A Bitch Named Karma:

Sunday, May 17, 2009

I'm on my way....finally!!!!

I think as a writer...we get used to rejection, almost immune to it...."Another one to add to cork board...." And even email rejection letters...though they can't be saved and used to wallpaper a bathroom, unless you print them anyway, tend to be the same. You check your inbox and see a publisher or agent's name as the sender with a subject of Re: Query. You know what it says before even clicking on it............I did until yesterday that is........................

I was offered a publishing contract!

A few weeks ago as the final last ditch effort for my second novel, A Bitch Named Karma, I started looking into ePublishers. I had been on the traditional merry-go-round with the novel several times. I did a major rewrite with a name change and started again. I'd gotten several partial requests, even a full request...all ending in rejection. I just could not find a home for this story that I loved so much. I started looking into publishing it for free for Amazon's Kindle. But it sounded so confusing and I just wasn't real sure what I was getting myself into. I then started looking into ePublishers. Seemed like a decent way to go so I sent out some submission packets.

Then yesterday I got a response from Lyrical Press! I sat there for a few minutes unsure if I was actually reading what I thought I was reading:

We’re happy to inform you that after reviewing your submission, we’d like to extend a contract for A Bitch Names Karma. Our editors and screeners thoroughly enjoyed this read and we’d love to add it to our catalog.

My husband was outside trying to finish up the last few things on the wooden swing set we bought for our kids. I walked out in my pajamas, regardless that my neighbor was outside playing with his kids, and told him. He climbed down from the playhouse part of the thing and hugged me. We both found tears in our eyes.

I'd done some research on the company and it seems like it's on the up and up. Folks at Absolute Write Water Cooler had good things to say too. Plus, this company has really nice covers...some of the others......tacky is the nicest word I can think of!!!

No fat advance, but I have to say, royalties are really decent for ePublishing! I was kinda surprised....comparable to what I'd make if my book was picked up by a print publisher and sold in books stores.

So, once I have my lawyer take a look at the contract and I sign it and mail it to them, I will officially be on my way to being a published author!!!

Is this real??? This is happening...to ME???? So many days I wondered if this would ever ever happen to me......

Signing a contract is so exhilarating!

Very excited to share with you all...Lyrical press offered me a contract for my second novelette, titled Soap Dreams! Yay!!

I wrote two novelettes, completed unrelated. A friend had sent me a link to a romance magazine that was looking for pieces with a max word count of 10,000. I thought I;d give it a try. And I really liked writing something that length. It was long enough to really get into the story (as opposed to a short story with a 5,000 max) but short enough to not be able to focus on any sub plots and I had to keep my character list short. I completed one, edited, got feedback form several places, and then sent it off. I wrote the second while I waited. And then I never heard anything. The second story was finished but the word count was too high....I let it sit. There was no point in whittling it down.

Fast forward a year or two. I had received my contract for A Bitch Named Karma from Lyrical press and I was ecstatic. And I found that they also published shorter works. Maybe I could finally find a home or these pieces that I had no clue what to do with.

But Lyrical has a 15,000 word minimum. So I went to work and bumped up my word count for Paradise Cove. I submitted it and wahlah! They loved it! Then I worked on Soap Dreams some more and when I finally had it ready to submit. And they loved that one too! I signed the contract and it's ready to mail! (Woulda went in today's mail, but no mail today!)

So happy to have found a home for these short works...one thing I absolutely LOVE about digital publishing!! A few years ago, no one would have wanted to publish a 15,000 word story. Yeah, there are compilations but never do they take on newbie writers.

Finally something....but still aggravating!

I finally heard back from my lawyer on Friday afternoon...by email. She said two of her clients were arrested during the week and that's why she hadn't gotten back to me sooner.

Though I do have sympathy for her busy life....but the bottom line....it's not my concern. In my opinion, with any business, no matter if you're providing a service like she is or providing a product like I used to do when I had my floral business....a GOOD business person will make their clients feel like they are their only client. I don't want to hear about problems with other clients...it's none of my concern. What concerns me is that it was over a week past the date she told me she'd get back to me by. And that is unacceptable in any business.

So anyway...in this email, she tells me she has reviewed the contract and to call her over the weekend to discuss it. This weekend has been the craziest I've had in a long long time...seriously jam packed. I emailed her back and told her that...though I doubt she cares...and said I would try on Sunday morning/early afternoon. I ended up having a tiny window...like 15 minutes...but I was worried I'd be on the phone with her for an hour and I just did not have that kind of time.

I called her today...voice mail...I will go send her an email. I wish she would just email me her comments on the contract...and I have said this to her multiple times. I would rather have it written out for me so I can refer back if I need to. I can take notes if I'm on the phone with her, but it's hard to catch everything.

On a happier note...had a FANTASTIC time at the concert last night!!

Okay...what's better than a publishing contract???

Um....two publishing contracts.......

I about fell over when I checked my email this morning. And there are still 7 more ePublishers I haven't heard from yet.

For as awesome as I feel today, I'm sitting her quite frustrated. (And I have a headache...which means I'll be in pain all day until I go to sleep unless I take some Excedrin....and that makes me nauseous). I've been trying for the past hour to find a lawyer to review my contract. I read that you need a lawyer who specifically deals with publishing contracts and I can't find one locally. I went to a website that gives publishing contract advice...they have a flat fee... $475. I just cannot manage that. I did find on Absolute Write a great page that deciphers a basic publishing contract and puts it into very simple terms.

So, after reading some of that, I have a better handle on the contract. If I keep doing what I'm doing, googling what I don't get and return to the Absolute Write webpage I found, can I manage this without a lawyer's advice?

For the most part, the contract seems fine. I read that you shouldn't sign away secondary rights, which this contract does, in a way, but I still get royalties: 50%. I guess the question is, do I REALLY think anyone is gonna wanna take a book from an ePublisher and make it into a movie???? Who knows. And my royalties on book sales are based on net sales, not list price...I read some publishers do it that way (even print publishers) while others don't.

I swear, writing the book is the simplest thing ever....all you writers who are having trouble getting the words down.....that part is cake!!!!!