My friend Janice is enjoying a milestone moment. A major traditional publisher will release her novel, Accused, tomorrow! I asked Janice if she would stop by and tell us a little about her journey.

Routine
1. A customary or regular course of procedure.
2. Commonplace tasks, chores, or duties as must be done regularly or at specified intervals; typical or everyday activity: the routine of an office.
3. Regular, unvarying, habitual, unimaginative, or rote procedure.

I begin with the definition of ‘routine’ for a couple of reasons. First, I’ve always wondered if the path to publication for my novel Accused was routine. And second, I realized that the very thing that can make a book ready for publication is commonplace, regular, and unvarying.

Accused, my first book with Tyndale House Publishers, is set for release February 1. It’s ironic to me that Accused is also the first book I ever attempted to write, and the first to be rejected many times. This, I’ve learned, is routine; every writer experiences rejection at one time or another. Few writers can write a perfect first draft that is sold immediately to their first choice publisher. (Can anyone?)

I’ve always loved to read, and when I stepped over the line to try and write a novel, the biggest question in my mind was: Do I have the talent to be a writer?  When I attended a small writer’s conference and heard a speaker say that anyone willing to work hard and study their craft could be a writer, I set about learning the craft, and I dreamed of having a novel bearing my name published by a traditional publishing house.

I’d been writing police reports for a few years and I had to unlearn “the facts, please, only the facts.” To learn the craft of writing novels, I read a lot of books by successful authors on how to write a novel. I read books by successful authors in my genre, Chandler, Block, Crais, Grafton etc. I also read best sellers in all genres, wondering if there were a similar thread in the prose, a trick there I could learn to help me be successful.

Alongside the reading, I was writing. I had an idea for a suspense novel and I wrote and rewrote, wrote and rewrote. I probably drove friends crazy with, “Can you read this bit and tell me how it sounds?” What helped me the most was finding a mentor who was a published author and then a group of writers to talk to and work with through the learning process.

When I thought I’d finally gotten it all down, and printed out what I was sure was the final, perfect draft of my novel, I was certain publishers would fall all over themselves to buy it. I’d followed directions, hadn’t I? Surely that meant success.

It wasn’t success, it was the beginning of a lot of rejection and a lot more hard work. Now came the commonplace, the regular and the unvarying routine of revision, revision, and revision. I’d read in one writing book that a writer needed to go through their manuscript until they were sick of it, then go through it one more time.

A lot of people at this point might say, “What is the point? Why didn’t you just self-publish and forget traditional publishers?”

Because that wasn’t my dream.

Back to routine. The path to publication for me was a lot of hard work, a lot of study and a lot of writing and rewriting. Now, on February 1, 2012, the dream I pursued will come to fruition. My novel will be published by a large, traditional publisher. But what I’ve found even more gratifying than a publishing contract is when someone says to me, “I picked up your book and couldn’t put it down!”

It was a routine of study, reading, writing and re-writing that produced a book I can’t wait to see in bookstores.

If you have any questions for Janice, please leave a comment. She’d love to hear from you!

A retired Long Beach, California, police officer of 22 years (16 in uniform and 6 as a non-career officer), Janice Cantore worked a variety of assignments – patrol, administration, juvenile investigations and training. During the course of her career in uniform Janice found that faith was indispensable to every aspect of the job. She published articles on faith at work, one for a quarterly newspaper called “Cop and Christ”, and another for the monthly magazine “Today’s Christian Woman”.

With retirement, Janice began to write longer pieces and several novels were born. She has a two-book suspense series in print that she calls Brinna’s Heart Series, The Kevlar Heart and A Heart of Justice (Oaktara Publishing). Janice is excited and honored to now be a part of the Tyndale House Publishing family. Accused, the first installment in her new suspense offering, The Pacific Coast Justice Series, is set to be released February 1, 2012, and will kick off a brand new chapter in her writing career. In addition to suspense and action, her books feature strong female leads. Janice writes suspense novels designed to keep you engrossed and leave you inspired.

You can connect with Janice on Facebook and on her web site.

This year, my blog here is going to be all about self-publishing but in the context of being a writer first. As a writer, I’m interested in any opportunity where I get to write stories that make me happy and where readers are going to find and enjoy them. With that in mind, I’ve just submitted a short story to an anthology. Yay!

The good news is that I made the deadline with a half hour to go. LOL!

The rough part was the 48 hours before that deadline.

Oh. My. Gosh. What was I thinking? I quickly got to that point where I was sure I not only sucked as a writer, but was completely delusional as a human being. Why, oh why, had I ever quit accounting?

I’d had the idea to take the discarded beginning of my superhero novel and create a short story about how the couple met. I thought it would be fun and I could put it on my web site for free to introduce readers to the characters. That way, when the novel came out, there would already be readers waiting.

But it had been longer than I thought since I last looked at that beginning. When I was ready to start working on it, in fact, I found two totally different beginnings. Hmm, right. I remember now. Some books have a dozen beginnings before you figure out what the heck you’re trying to do.

No worries. I’ll take the best sections from these two and craft a short story out of them.

Um…except I’ve never really written a short story. I’m a novel girl.

Yeah, I started this whole thing grass-backwards.

So. It’s 48 hours before the deadline. I think I’ve got a pretty good version ready to polish. I sit my butt in the chair at the beginning of the day and find an email from a writer friend with an awesome checklist for polishing. I write her back and tell her I love her. I open my file and start working.

I see something that doesn’t work. It needs to be changed and I have an idea on how to improve it. Ooo, I like it. But I have to go change this other thing to work with the improvement. Hmm, which means this other thing doesn’t work.

I knock my head against the wall and my husband tells me he believes in me. I try again. This sucks. It still doesn’t work. This really sucks. Maybe I should just let this deadline pass me by. The anthology is a fundraiser for my chapter so I won’t make any money (which means I’m not losing any by backing out), and no one is counting on my name to sell books so it won’t hurt the chapter if I’m not there.

I open my email again (because that’s what you do when your writing freaks you out) and find a couple emails from other chapter mates who are also racing toward the deadline. I decide not to give up yet.

I make some other changes. There are still problems. I wander out to the kitchen to find something healthy to snack on. I eat almonds instead of chocolate. John tells me again that I rock and I can do it. I promise him gratitude sex when this is all over. He tells me I really rock.

I keep trying. The next day I find several things that really have to be done before I start writing again. Really. Very important. Trust me.

After a few hours, I ask John if we can switch computers so I can change positions. My butt hurts. I take the laptop to the couch near the fireplace. Apparently the change has shaken something free in my brain. I realize the broken sections need to be deleted not fixed.

A few years ago I found a way to delete stuff that didn’t cause me heart palpitations – a new document called “Deleted Stuff.” Yeah, baby. Over the next few hours I deleted one third of the story. Wow. Then I read it again. I’m a genius.

It’s 8pm and the deadline is at midnight. I’m freakin’ exhausted. But it’s not done, and now I’m committed.

It’s 10:30pm and I’m no longer terrified of what my friends will think when they read this. But it’s not perfect. Keep working.

It’s 11:15pm and John asks me if I’m awake. My eyes are open, but he thinks I’ve learned a new skill. I finish the final read without moving anything but my mouse finger and my eyelids. I move to the other computer and re-read the submission guidelines and attach the document to the email.

I hit Send.

And I tell myself that when I get some sleep, I’m going to feel pretty darn good about myself.

This past Saturday my local RWA chapter (Orange County Chapter in California) met. Our guests were historical romance author Patricia Wynn talking about combining history and mystery, and Carina Press’s Angela James talking about publishing in the digital age. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole day and thought I’d share some of the things I found most interesting.

PATRICIA WYNN
Though I don’t write or read historicals (except for the occasional regency romance) or mysteries, there were a couple of things Patricia said that struck me as useful in my writing.

• She believes your story should grow out of the setting in such a way that it couldn’t happen just that way in any other place, at any other time. I started thinking about my superhero books and wondered if I’m doing enough with setting.
• In terms of scene and sequel, Patricia said that if you have fewer and shorter sequels, you will increase the pace and the tension of the story.
• Another thing that will increase conflict and tension is giving your protagonist fewer people to talk to and confide in. At first I thought, I’m not getting rid of Tori’s best friend or her sister. But then I thought, all I have to do is create reasons why she can’t confide in them, or can’t confide right away.

ANGELA JAMES
During Angela James’ talk, several topics caught my attention.

• Authors need to understand their contracts before they sign them. (I strongly agree as a business person. I know several authors who couldn’t tell you what their royalty percentages are, let alone on what basis they are calculated.)
• She wouldn’t suggest that an author already getting published by a traditional print publisher switch over to an epublisher just because of the better royalty rates for ebooks. There are many factors to consider, and there are still a lot of benefits in being published by a traditional print publisher like Harlequin.
• It’s to an author’s advantage for the option clause in their contract to be as narrow as possible. You don’t want to sign something that sells all rights, in all territories, in both print and digital and in every form yet to be created, in perpetuity. Remember you are licensing your work, not “selling” it. (See the blog by Kristine Kathryn Rusch discussing both licensing and how writers are agreeing to be paid less than in the Great Depression.) Know what the term (length) of your contract is. Once you sign it, you’ve agreed to that deal for that length of time.
• The greatest position of strength for either party trying to come to an agreement is their willingness to walk away from the negotiations. Know where you stand, what you’re willing to accept, and in what areas you won’t negotiate. Almost all contracts are negotiable, but not all sections of the contract are negotiable.
• In answer to the question, “Why should I choose Carina Press or any other publisher over self-publishing?”, Angela smiled and said, “I don’t think all of you should.” She said some self-published authors have made it very clear that they hate to be edited. That’s one reason not to try to find a publisher – you’ll both end up miserable. Some people like the inherent control in self-publishing. Others like that a publishing house is doing more of the work (for more of the money) so that the author can spend more time doing what they presumably do best – writing. And she reminded us that there is still a lot to be said for a brand. Harlequin, Penguin, Random House (my list, not Angela’s) are still powerful brand names that people associate with quality books.

Angela’s talk gave me a lot to think about. I agree that there are more benefits to being published by a publishing house than self-publishing and doing all the work yourself. But I agree with people like Kristine Kathryn Rusch and J.A. Konrath who believe that there are better ways to pay for the services than to pay a large percentage over the life of the contract (which can be forever, depending on what you sign).

THE COST OF SELF-PUBLISHING
Self-publishing is expensive. I firmly believe an editor will help you write a better book. How many times have you heard an author say that their editor pushed them to make changes the author wouldn’t have made on their own, changes that made the book better? But many (most?) self-published authors don’t spend the money on quality editing. (I’m talking about both content/structural editing and copy editing.)

I expect to have to pay hundreds of dollars per book for the right content editor, and additional fees for a copy editor. I’m going to start paying someone to format my books as soon as I have some extra money to do so. Meanwhile, I have to accept the opportunity cost of doing the copy editing and the digital and print formatting myself: for every hour I am not writing, I am potentially losing money. And there are many more expenses that I have to pay for out of pocket as well.

It’s a difficult path I’ve chosen. I’d add one more reason to Angela’s list on why you should choose self-publishing over licensing your work to a publishing house: because you really get a kick out of creating your little business yourself!    That’s how I feel. And I think I’ll continue on my path as long as I feel that way.