• Will the books be sold through the eharlequin store?
• Will there be any HH branding on the book, either on the cover or in the copyright page?
• Are you (Harlequin) concerned about brand dilution?

This is Ms. Vallik’s response. She said she would be around to answer a few questions.

1.       The books will not be branded Harlequin.

2.       The books will be branded HH (see nice logo on website) attached

3.       The copyright is not associated with Harlequin.

First, why is Harlequin launching a self-publishing business? Bowker reported in 2008 that more titles were published through self-publishing than traditional publishers. Self-publishing is a fast growing and vibrant part of the publishing industry today. Harlequin has decided to provide a romance focused self-publishing business for those that choose to go down the self-publishing road.

Brand – Harlequin put its name on the Harlequin Horizons site to clearly indicate this is a romance self-publishing site. The books published through Harlequin Horizons will not carry traditional Harlequin branding. The self-published author will be the brand and the Horizon double H logo will appear on the spine of the book. Harlequin is the gold standard in romance and that will not be compromised. Readers will not confuse Horizons books with traditional Harlequin books.

Distribution – Self-publishing has a different distribution model than traditional publishing. Horizons books will not be carried nor appear in traditional Harlequin distribution. The self-published book will not appear next to a traditionally published Harlequin title.

The Harlequin Horizons site very clearly indicates it is a self-publishing business and that those who choose to publish with Horizons will not receive the traditional Harlequin distribution and marketing support.

Many authors are choosing to self-publish. There are a number of reasons to select self-publishing including as a way to see their work in print –  to give copies as gifts, to have a bound copy to help in finding an agent, or simply as a keepsake. Harlequin is providing a service to those choosing to self-publish with a leading organization in this field, Author Solutions.

To recap, self-publishing is an option for those who want to put their story into print. The Harlequin brand will not be on these titles. The Harlequin Horizons site is very transparent that it offers  self-publishing services.

Is Harlequin still publishing aspiring authors: Of course we are!  We remain committed to reading and acquiring manuscripts from aspiring authors.

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• Harlequin Horizons: Shortsighted or Farseeing?
• Tuesday Midday Links: Harlequin Horizon’s, A self publishing venture
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• Angela James and her journey to Harlequin with Carina Press
• Friday Midday News Roundup
• Thursday Midday Links Roundup: Education is moving toward digital
• REVIEW: Transformed into the Frenchman’s Mistress by Barbara Dunlop
• REVIEW: Runaway Lady, Conquering Lord by Carol Townend
• REVIEW: Hot on Her Heels by Susan Mallery

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***

I took my first crack at writing a novel at an age when my most of my contemporaries were figuring out their Social Security benefits and considering the merits of taking up golf full time.

Not to put too fine point in it, I was more than a little gray. As it turned out I was also more than a little lucky.

While I’d been a writer all my life, I’d never tried fiction before. Not so much as a single short story.   I’d spent more than twenty-five years as a copywriter and creative director at several of the biggest advertising agencies in the world. I wrote TV and print campaigns for a long list of major clients that included the US Army (“Be All You Can Be”), Lincoln/Mercury (“The Shape You Want To Be In”) and Advil (“Advanced Medicine For Pain”).  After I left the agency business in the late nineties I put in several years freelancing for clients in the financial services and healthcare industries. I wrote articles, brochures, annual reports, and, for the last couple of years, glossy coffee table histories of major institutions.

At the end of 2005 I finished an assignment writing the history of a major hospital based in Portland, Maine. I had nothing else scheduled.  I’d always thought I’d like to take a crack at writing a thriller and I decided if I was ever going to do it, this seemed like as good a time as any.

So I asked my wife how she would feel if I stopped working for a year, we lived off our savings (this was, of course, before the 2008 market crash) and I wrote my first novel. If I couldn’t sell it, I told her, I could always go back to writing institutional histories.

“Is this something you really want to do?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “I really do.”

“Well then,” she said, “You’d better get started.”

And so I set to work.  I bought a bunch of books on how to write a novel. Write Away by Elizabeth George and Stephen King’s On Writing were probably the most helpful. I joined a writing workshop led by a woman who taught creative writing at a nearby university. And I started developing plot ideas and a lead character for a thriller series based in my hometown of Portland, Maine.

For the next eighteen months I wrote and revised, wrote and revised.  I finished a polished draft of THE CUTTING in June, 2007.

The rest, amazingly, turned out to be easy. And extremely serendipitous.  I mentioned to a neighbor of mine that I’d finished the book and she asked me what I planned to do next. I said I was going to start looking for an agent. She said her sister had gone to elementary school with a woman who was now a literary agent in New York and asked if I like her to contact the woman.  I said sure, not really expecting anything to come of it.

I googled the agent’s name and discovered she was one of the top mystery and thriller agents in the business, representing writers like Tess Gerritsen, Lisa Gardner and Julia Spencer-Fleming. She told my neighbor to have me to send her a cover letter and the first eighty pages of THE CUTTING.  I did.

A week later she emailed me to request the rest of the manuscript. Two weeks after that she offered to represent me. After a couple of months of further revisions she sent the manuscript out to six or seven major publishers. We got two offers including the one we took for a two book deal from St. Martin’s/Minotaur.

Yes, I believe I’m a good writer and that THE CUTTING is a good book. I think it’s fast paced, well-written and exciting to read. Most of the critics and most of my readers seem to agree.  It’s gotten terrific reviews.

Still I know I was extraordinarily lucky to have everything fall in place so quickly.  I’d be a fool to think otherwise.   Maybe the gods simply took a look at all my gray hair and decided if I was ever going to become a novelist they’d better hurry things along a bit.

Related Posts:

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• My First Sale by Kate Pearce
• My First Sale by Kylie Brant
• My First Sale by Kat Martin
• My First Sale by Lori Brighton & Giveaway
• My First Sale by Claudia Dain

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***

I remember getting The Call really well because I was sitting with my dad in front of my computer, watching CNN.com as John McCain introduced Sarah Palin as his running mate. I hadn’t thought too much about where or when it would happen––if it would happen––but I never would have imagined my father being the first person to know simply from the way I said hello on the phone. It was August of 2008 and it had been three months since I’d emailed the complete version of my book to Avon Red.

And I say complete, because they had already seen two of the novellas of the single author anthology I had submitted.

In January of ‘08, I had the idea for a short erotic story, which started with this one vivid interlude. From those images, a question formed: could a solid, soulmate-style relationship between two people develop after a one-night stand? The project ended up being a novella called Against the Wall, which was fun and fast paced and totally different from anything I had written previously.

I knew Avon took unagented submissions (and at the time, I was unagented) and that on the submission page it said that their Red imprint accepted novellas. So I wrote a query letter. Two weeks later, I received an email saying I should send it in. I sent the story by US post with tracking. Didn’t actually check if it arrived until two weeks later. Found out that it never arrived. Decided to Fed Ex another copy. I think it was about a couple weeks after that that I received an email again saying the editor loved it but couldn’t do anything with just one novella. So I wrote three more, creating a series in one book, and kept sending them in as I finished them…

At this point I was living in a relative writer’s isolation. I hadn’t yet joined RWA, I hadn’t yet stumbled upon that wonderful community, Romance Divas. All I had was myself, my amazing sister as beta reader, and my husband. I knew that the editor liked my voice, and I liked my stories, only the last two stories were a bit different. One was much darker and dealt with some issues I wasn’t certain would fly over well. And the last story contained more of a micro-conflict that the usual romance plot. Over summer I think I drove my sister crazy discussing feminist theory and all the ways people could hate my work.

On These Silken Sheets, the single-author anthology that includes all four erotic historical novellas, was released on September 8, 2009 by Avon Red. Labeled as erotica but with distinct HEAs, On These Silken Sheets brings up that persistent question of what exactly is erotic romance. But no matter how the stories are labeled, writing romance has been a fascinating, fun ride so far, and I absolutely love the romance community!

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• My First Sale by Terri DuLong
• My First Sale by Gary Morgenstein, Better Late Than Early
• My First Sale by Therese Walsh
• My First Sale by Jessa Slade
• My First Sale by Kate Pearce
• My First Sale by Kylie Brant
• My First Sale by Kat Martin
• My First Sale by Lori Brighton & Giveaway
• My First Sale by Claudia Dain

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***

The older I get, the more I realize that I’ve always been a late bloomer. At age 25 I was divorced, a single mom with three children—and not much of an education. So I joined the ranks of college kids much younger than I and ended up earning a degree in secretarial science. I remarried, worked as a legal secretary and at age 34 discovered I would bloom once again—graduating from college a few years later as a Registered Nurse.

During all of these years, I wrote. No, I didn’t write for publication. I wrote because I had to write. I had been writing all of my life—volumes of pages to pen pals around the world, diaries and journals. Writing was my passion but never once did I consider that it could also be a career.

Like my mother, I’ve always been an avid reader, and it was my mother who provided stacks of books to keep me entertained on those cold, snowy, New England weekends. I was an only child and lacked siblings, but I never lacked friends thanks to those stories. During those years of raising my own children, I devoured the women’s fiction novels my mother would let me borrow—Barbara Taylor Bradford, Belva Plain, Susan Howatch, Rona Jaffe and many others.

By the time I was working as a critical care nurse in the Boston area, my youngest child was 15, and I was beginning to seriously focus on my writing. My life experiences contributed to this new phase in my life, but along the way I had also taken a creative writing course at college the summer after my 95-year-old grandmother passed away. She had come from Poland through Ellis Island to Salem, Massachusetts, in 1908 and I had a story to tell. That was my first attempt at a manuscript and nothing breeds success like success. My professor critiqued the first three chapters and said she could feel the story pouring out of me. The praise and encouragement she gave me pushed me to finish the manuscript. Finish it I did, but I put it aside a year later when my husband was transferred to Florida with his job.

I quickly realized that while I loved to write, I had no knowledge of the book industry itself. I also needed to learn much more about the craft of writing. I began attending writers’ conferences throughout the year. Eventually, I was asked to write travel articles for Bonjour Paris based on my many trips to Paris and throughout France—but through the eyes of a fictional canine character. It was a challenge and the positive feedback from readers made me decide to attempt another novel. Rejections arrived—but I still kept writing.

When my husband retired four years ago, we moved to the very small island of Cedar Key, off the west coast of Florida. I knew I was in my element. It didn’t take long before the quirky and lovely characters in my small town and the beauty of the island itself inspired me to write another manuscript. More disappointment followed—this time in the form of agents, but I never gave up. I couldn’t. I strongly believed in my story and my characters and felt eventually somebody else would also.

I had been a member of Romance Writers of America for seven years and decided to attend the conference in Dallas two years ago. I attended the panel for Kensington Books and heard the editor say she was looking for women’s fiction. When I returned home, I sent her the first three chapters of my Cedar Key story. Five months later I received an e-mail from her assistant requesting a full manuscript. It was the closest I’d come to acceptance from a traditional, New York publisher, but disappointment had taught me to simply let go and just keep writing. Two months later, I was pretty convinced that the Kensington exchange was just another disappointing interlude in my pursuit of becoming a published author.

Then in late February of 2008, an e-mail arrived from that very same Kensington editor saying she had good news—she wanted to offer me a two-book contract and would it be convenient to call me later that afternoon. Yes! After such a long, circuitous route, I finally had gotten the call! And earlier this year my editor phoned again—this time to offer me another contract. I’m now writing a Christmas novella in an anthology headlined by Fern Michaels, coming November 2010, around the same time as book number two in my Cedar Key series.

So, yes, I may be a late bloomer who has dodged her share of rain along the way, but I’m also a firm believer that it’s the rain that fell that ultimately enabled me to bloom, to grow and to develop into what I was meant to become: a published author.

Related Posts:

• My First Sale by James Hayman, Call It Beginners Luck
• My First Sale by Sabrina Darby
• My First Sale by Gary Morgenstein, Better Late Than Early
• My First Sale by Therese Walsh
• My First Sale by Jessa Slade
• My First Sale by Kate Pearce
• My First Sale by Kylie Brant
• My First Sale by Kat Martin
• My First Sale by Lori Brighton & Giveaway
• My First Sale by Claudia Dain

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***

In July of 2008, my agent sold my debut novel, The Last Will of Moira Leahy, in a two-book deal to Random House. That’s the happy ending. But, as readers, you know that every happy ending is preceded by a testing journey and dark moment, when all seems lost. I’d love to tell you about mine.

In 2002, after years of writing children’s book manuscripts, I decided to try my hand at adult fiction: a romance. I imagined a heroine—a romance languages professor (Maeve)—and a hero—an antiques dealer with an English accent (Noel). I decided to begin the story at an auction house, where my characters would win something. But what? A Javanese keris—a sword with a wavy blade—was on a list of items I’d virtually gathered for Noel’s shop. That seemed interesting; they’d win that.

I wrote my first scene and handed it to a friend, anxious for her good opinion.

“I like it,” she said. “Will the keris be in the rest of the story?”

This? Wasn’t something I’d even considered. But that night, I did some research and learned the keris might be able to affect Maeve’s life in more ways than I ever could’ve imagined. The keris began to play an influential role in the book. Not only that, suddenly Maeve had a twin—Moira—with something to say. Music had butted its way into the spotlight, too.

“This is a romance?” my critique partners asked on a regular basis.

I was no longer sure what it was, but I pressed on, finished the draft, and in late 2003 set out to find an agent. I sent queries; I received rejections. Most were the professional equivalent of “Nice writing, but WTH is this?”

It wasn’t until agent Deidre Knight read my story in early 2004 that I received some helpful advice. There was good news:

“There’s an air of mystery here–almost a gothic kind of feeling to the hush over the story- -that I think gives it a real magic.”

And there was not-so-good news:

“I could be totally wrong, but it almost has a kind of women’s fiction feeling to it, and yet it’s a romance. My gut tells me you probably have a part of you that either wants to write women’s fic, or that ultimately *will* write women’s fic.”

I remember that hot-grief moment so well, because I knew then that Deidre was right. I’d created a square peg. It would never fit in—not unless I changed its composition dramatically.

In 2005, I threw out all but two scenes and began again. I needed to expand on Maeve’s story, keep Noel but learn more about Moira, go deeper with the keris, re-envision everything.

In 2006, I tossed it all out again, started over for a third time.

Yes, I questioned my sanity. What were the chances that I’d ever really be published? But I kept writing and revising because I loved the characters. To ignore them would be like knowing a beloved lay bleeding in a ditch somewhere, when I was the only one who could save them.

I promised you a dark moment, when all seemed lost. Here it comes.

I finished polishing my story in early 2008, knowing it was my best work, and again set out to find an agent. I was shocked when an Important Agent requested my manuscript straightaway, and far less so when he rejected. But he was nice about it. When I asked if he knew anyone who might connect with the work, he named someone within his agency but said she rarely accepted new clients.

Not a lot of hope there, but I wrote a new query, printed another synopsis, mailed my submission. Soon after, Busy Agent’s assistant asked for a partial, then the full.

And then, the strangest thing, I was contacted once again by Important Agent.

“Your story made our assistant cry,” he said. “I’m going to read the full and reconsider. Stay tuned.” Later he emailed me, “Call me. I’d like to talk.” He sent his number.

Now I knew this wasn’t the way it was supposed to work. When agents loved and wanted to represent you, they called *you* to tell you. But this was Important Agent. Maybe he did things differently.

I was nearly bursting with hope when I called, which should’ve been a warning sign; you know what happens with things that want to burst.

“I’m not going to tell you what you’re hoping for,” he said. “Really, I have a lot of questions.”

Pop.

He did have questions, but he also had a lot to say. Unless the story was heavily revised, it was—in his esteemed opinion—unpublishable.

Unpublishable.

That word possesses a thud-like quality, doesn’t it? If ever there was a time I wanted to toss my manuscript in the trash and pretend I’d never dreamed a dream, it was then. Because if he was right, and my story was that flawed, then my gut was flawed—and if you can’t count on your gut, it’s time to hang it up.

The weirdest thing happened then. Somewhere from deep inside my little old self, a voice peeped up, shy at first, weak, then stronger—like the stale and tiny heart of the Grinch swelling to life inside his otherwise vacant chest after he had a realization. And my book—it was like Christmas. It was there, and it had come, and I believed in it.

I remember telling my husband in our kitchen: “No, he’s wrong. Important Agent is wrong. The story is solid, it’s ready. You’ll see.”

And you know what happened next: I wrote a new query, printed another synopsis, mailed my submission to another agent—Elisabeth Weed. And she asked for the partial and then the full, and called me herself to tell me she loved the book. She became my agent, and she sold my book to Random House in a preemptive two-book deal. And I don’t tell you that to brag. I tell you that because I know that you, dear readers, will appreciate a happy ending that proves something we all need to hear: Never, never quit on your dreams.

FTC Advisory Warning: Therese Walsh’s book was provided to the blog by someone (I can’t remember who sent it to us) either the author or publisher. No payment was made for this blog post. By posting this first sale letter, we are not endorsing the book or the author of the post.  We do endorse that First Sale letters are fun to read though.

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• My First Sale by Sabrina Darby
• My First Sale by Terri DuLong
• My First Sale by Gary Morgenstein, Better Late Than Early
• My First Sale by Jessa Slade
• My First Sale by Kate Pearce
• My First Sale by Kylie Brant
• My First Sale by Kat Martin
• My First Sale by Lori Brighton & Giveaway
• My First Sale by Claudia Dain

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***

Sometimes I think I took the world’s most boring route to getting The Call. No late night runs across the border. No emergency tracheotomies. No trumpet fanfare.

Instead, it was like a Ken Burns epic: Slow pans across the scene, endless talking heads, a pretty picture, and then a few more slow pans for good measure. Maybe some bagpipes. I’m not complaining, mind you, just sorely tempted to rewrite with more Bruckheimer-style, multi-stage explosions.

Almost a hundred rejections over more than ten years on nearly a million final draft words. The math isn’t exact; I’m rounding to the nearest heartache. On the plus side, my plodding journey did hit most of the cliché mileposts on the path to publication.
1. The first book which must remain forever chained under the bed.

My first attempt at a romance featured leather jerkins, steam locomotives and rubber bands… and it wasn’t steampunk. Who knew you had to pick a time period when you write a book? Needless to say, I began amassing my rejections with that story.

2. Casting about for a “voice.”

Once I learned you had to pick a genre, I accidentally wrote one of each of them. From my initial unfortunate mashup, I traipsed—with rather more enthusiasm than focus—through a couple Regencies, a rom-com and a chick lit, a medieval, a paranormal romance and then a futuristic romantic suspense, and finally an urban fantasy romance. Triangulation isn’t the quickest way to your dream, but you get to explore a lot of ground along the way.

3. Ooh, you’re thisclose.

Eventually, I began to get “good” rejections. Any rejection that didn’t look like a Mad Lib (“Choose an adjective: Desperate. Delusional. Dismayed.”) counted as a good rejection. The letters progressed from specifics about what didn’t work, to permission to send the next project, to requests that I revise and resubmit. These sorts of letters are akin to dangling a raw chicken carcass lower and lower over a crocodile tank. It’s all good fun until someone loses an arm.
4. Playing the contest slut.

In 2007, I entered my local Romance Writers of America chapter writing contest as I did most years, only this time, I won! The grand prize was an American Beauty rose dipped in 24-carat gold. Shiny! Best of all, the final-round judging editor asked to see the complete manuscript. I quickly finished it and sent it off. But I’d long ago learned not to wait on pins and needles. I started another story. Only this time, the editor got back to me and asked if I was willing to do revisions. Was I ever!

With an editor circling the hook, I knew this was a good time to query agents. I’d been rejected by most over the years, so I didn’t get my hopes up. Only this time (I’m sure you’re seeing the pattern now) an agent was willing to read the complete.

I’d spent so long lining up my dominoes – nearly a million of the little suckers – by the time they started to fall down, it smacked of a certain cumulative inevitability.

The editor liked the revisions. The agent believed in the story and wanted to represent it. The editor and agent talked about me behind my back (in a good way) and one morning there was an email in my inbox giving me the details of the contract and letting me know we needed to do a few more revisions.

Bemused, I realized I’d hit yet another cliché of the publishing world:
5. Get back to work.

My editor did call me a couple of emailed revisions later to say, Hey, we never did The Call. And, yeah, this time I squealed.
In celebration of my long-awaited-by-me-and-my-grandmother debut, I’d like to give away signed copies of SEDUCED BY SHADOWS, Book 1 of The Marked Souls, to three random commenters.

FTC Advisory Warning: Jessa Slade’s book was provided to the blog by either the author or publisher. No payment was made for this blog post. By posting this first sale letter, we are not endorsing the book or the author of the post.

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• My First Sale by Sabrina Darby
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• My First Sale by Therese Walsh
• My First Sale by Kate Pearce
• My First Sale by Kylie Brant
• My First Sale by Kat Martin
• My First Sale by Lori Brighton & Giveaway

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***

I hate to start with back story, but I was of those kids who made stuff up all the time, so much so that I had a ‘slight problem’ distinguishing imagination from reality, a skill that wasn’t much appreciated throughout my childhood. By the time I moved to California from London in 1998, I’d forgotten about making stuff up, being far too busy bringing up four kids, remembering to drive on the wrong side of the road and hoping everyone had a nice day.

And then, I visited my local bookstore and discovered the ROMANCE section. It was huge! I immediately started reading my way through every single author I could find, and I realized that I had found my people. As I couldn’t work in the U.S, I decided to give myself five years to get a romance novel published.

After the usual traumas of a potential publishing career, horrendous contest entries, rejections, more rejections, editors leaving, agents dying the day I signed with them, and so forth, I finally sat down and wrote three books out of my usual steamy historical so-not-selling style. One of them was in first person. It was also 27K long and was an erotic historical romance, I promptly hid it under my bed

Luckily for me, my mentor coaxed me into sending it to Ellora’s Cave and imagine my surprise when one rainy Sunday afternoon in March, I got an email to say they wanted to publish it. It came out as an e-book in November 2005, four years, and eleven months into my five year deadline, I hadn’t quite intended to be an erotic romance writer, but I seemed to have a knack for it, so I just kept on doing it.

In my publishing experience, things either happen very fast or very slow. In early 2006, I sold my first print book to the now deceased Virgin ‘Cheek’ line. The editor asked me to rewrite the heroine and make her funkier San-Francisco-chic, so I did. That editor left, and the new one, said he was tired of funky hip San Francisco chicks and wanted something else. By the time he finally agreed to buy the book, I’d accidentally deleted version one and had to rewrite the whole thing from scratch. I wouldn’t recommend it.

In 2007 I signed with a new agent, the lovely Deidre Knight, and she sent out my first NY proposal for what turned out to be the first two books of the ‘Simply’ series. Within forty-eight hours we had an offer, and I was on my way. As I reminded her recently, since 2007 we’ve sold seven novels and two novellas to Kensington, one to Virgin ‘Cheek’ and three paranormal historicals to NAL.

As you might have noticed, I certainly wasn’t an overnight success. It took me seven years to get to the ‘big time’, and I’m still working at staying there. I’m sure that my ability to dream has helped me keep the faith and deal with all the setbacks, because I’ve realized that a publishing career really is a marathon rather than a sprint. I also know you need good friends, picky critique partners, a great agent and perhaps a dash of luck along the way.

Related Posts:

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• My First Sale by Sabrina Darby
• My First Sale by Terri DuLong
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• My First Sale by Therese Walsh
• My First Sale by Jessa Slade
• REVIEW: Simply Wicked by Kate Pearce
• My First Sale by Kylie Brant
• My First Sale by Kat Martin
• My First Sale by Lori Brighton & Giveaway

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***

Usually it takes very strong margaritas to get me to tell my first sale story. After all these years it still makes me wince at my ignorance. But I started writing before the Internet made it so easy to network with other writers. I didn’t belong to any writing groups or know anyone else who was writing. I just decided one summer I was going to write a book.

After a few months, I deemed it ‘ready’ and opened up the cover of my favorite books (Silhouette Intimate Moments) to see where to send it. I got the phone number for the company in New York and called to tell the receptionist I had a book I wanted to send in and asked how to go about it J

She huffily informed me that they didn’t accept unsolicited manuscripts. I had no idea what that meant, but could tell from her tone that it was a bad thing. She finally gave a long-suffering sigh and told me about tip sheets and query letters. I queried and got an invite to submit and sent it in.

I figured I’d hear in about six weeks. Four months later I got a two-page rejection letter from a senior editor detailing the work’s strengths and weaknesses and inviting me to revise and resubmit. I did, but I’d wised up a little. This time when I sent that first manuscript in, I immediately started another. That was lucky because this time it took six months to get yet another two page rejection letter. Manuscript two had been submitted, so I revised the first yet again and sent it in, too.

When Silhouette called I was actually home from bed with laryngitis. Leslie Wainger’s (then senior editor of Intimate Moments) assistant called. She said she was just tracking down my contact information because—AHEM—I had neglected to include it with my manuscript. She went on to say that she was quite excited because she’d found me in the slush pile. I had no idea what that was, but thought she said flush pile, and that didn’t sound good! She told me Leslie was reading the manuscript as we spoke and that she’d be calling me later.

After we hung up, I started to wonder if I’d dreamed it. Maybe it had just been a Vicks Vapor Rub induced hallucination! But Leslie did call a couple of hours later and make an offer on manuscript two. She asked if I had any other works and I told her I had another in their offices. A couple months later she bought manuscript one, as well. So while I can claim to have sold the first book I wrote, it did go through some extensive surgeries first J

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Welcome to a new feature at Dear Author: the Intro Interview. Alyson H. will bring us occasional interviews with newly-published authors. If you are an author with your first (or perhaps second) novel coming out, and you’d like to be considered for an interview, send your name, web information, and release date to DAintrointerview at gmail dot com.

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This month, we’re meeting Leanna Renee Heiber, whose Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker leads off a series that’s part fantasy, part historical-paranormal romance. In Heiber’s Victorian London, Jack the Ripper is no mere elusive criminal—supernatural forces are at work, an apocalyptic unrest threatening the city. The title character is also a refreshing mix: people keep describing her as timid, but Percy Parker’s heart “is fortified with passions.” She keeps rising to—and above—the occasion, and the blushing, crushing schoolgirl becomes the dauntless heroine.

Leanna is also a playwright and actor, and her novella Dark Nest won the Prism Award. She and fellow writers Maya Rodale and Hope Tarr founded Lady Jane’s Salon, a monthly romance reading series in NYC.

We have one copy of The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker to give away; you’re invited to leave a comment for a chance to win.

The Interview…

A six-word memoir for your protagonist, Percy Parker:

From beneath my veil; a radiant light.

The original “triggers” or inspiration points for this story:

In my mind: Miss Percy Parker walked into Professor Alexi Rychman’s finely appointed office and I had to figure out why Miss Percy looked like a ghost but wasn’t one. Across the room from this apparition of a woman sat the dark and brooding Professor and I had to know what made him tick. I had to figure out the tense and aching relationship between these two distinctly different people, staring at one another with such intensity, their hearts filled to the brim with secrets. These questions, these characters, utterly consumed me, immediately, and I knew when I met them that my life would never be the same. And it wasn’t.

Where did the phrase “strangely beautiful” come from?

My agent, Nicholas Roman Lewis. It was a brilliant call. I tweaked the title a little, but it’s basically his. He earned his keep with that one, it’s garnered us a great deal of attention. And consensus seems to be that it fits. I couldn’t be more pleased with it and cannot imagine the title now any other way. I suggested that “Strangely Beautiful” be the series title and that was met with immediate approval at Dorchester.

Your favorite line or moment in the book:

Utter tie between the following: the Beethoven’s Fifth to orchestrate Alexi and the antics therein, the entire waltz scene at the Academy Ball, the first kiss, and Lord Withersby’s entirely inappropriate comic relief in the final scene.

An unexpected research detour you made while writing Strangely Beautiful:

Looking up information on the Ripper murders I came across a newspaper article that was written at the time, lamenting that there were no streetlamps in the heart of Whitechapel. If there had only been more light, the article cried, it could have perhaps stopped these horrific deeds from happening in the safety of darkness. I found this fascinating, that the impulse to fix the situation was just more lights… This tidbit made its way into the novel, where I mention the streetlamps abruptly ending and plunging my hero into darkness.

You allude to the experiences of the Guard in the 18 years prior to the opening of the novel. Do you have this backstory fleshed out, or are you discovering it as you write the series? Any plans for shorter-form prequels?

I have their basic backstory in my head, but subtle details still emerge every day that I spend with them. Book III is a prequel novel, but we’ll be dealing with two Guards at that time, the former one and Alexi’s Guard, so glimpses of the familiar Guard will be shared with the other characters sent to put Prophecy in place.

And I’ll always be discovering more and more as I go forward. I have enough material on Lord Elijah Withersby for a full length-novel I can tell you that, but it just depends on if it can fit within the story arc. If people continue to warm to him, I may have to give him his own book – if Dorchester will let me. :) I’ve a novella for Rebecca and Michael.

The last 80 or so pages of the novel are just riveting—thrilling—satisfying. How did you go about creating a pay-off ending like that?

*blush* Wow, thanks! Well I guess I’ve always been drawn to stories where a whole lot happens in one fell and maddening swoop. And I certainly write in the sorts of ways I’m most drawn to reading. There’s something very engaging to me about reading– and writing– events at that seizing, tense pace. I honestly can’t say how I came up with the climax other than that it was simply there, in my head, presented like a film. That’s how I write – I see “film bits” in my head and I write them down and string those clips or stills together into a flowing whole. I guess I was watching a bit of a Gothic action-movie in my head when it got to the latter part of the book. Within the revision process a lot of time was spent smoothing that flowing action and really making it hum as the narrative shifts between the relative parties.

A few things I’m hoping to see in future Strangely Beautiful installments: Percy coming into her own. Stoic Alexi being a bit of a love-struck doofus. Jane…doing anything, because she’s fascinating. Rebecca wildly happy. More Shakespeare references. Anything you can confirm or deny about the direction of the series?

*grin* #1. Indeed. #2. Indeed. #3. Indeed. #4. Not yet (However, they may get their own novella in Oct. 2010! – full details TBA). #5. Not as many

Book II picks up exactly where Book I leaves off, with Percy and Alexi in the main focus as they attempt to establish themselves, with greater insight into the rest of the Guard along the way. But again, time is short, as an all out spectral war looms thick on the horizon.

Length of time from page one, draft one to the “sold” call:

9 years. 9 long heartbreaking years. But worth every minute of it. It’s where it’s supposed to be now. It’s the right publisher, the right editor and the right time.

How you found your agent:

At the time the President of the RWA NYC Chapter, Elizabeth Kerri Mahon (an extremely talented author, look for her Scandalous Women book in 2010!) asked me if I’d tried (in my exhaustive search for an agent) Agent Query.com. I hadn’t. I found my agent, Nicholas Roman Lewis, there. I was intrigued that he also represented theatre artists and had sold movie rights. I thought that might be a good fit. So, thankfully, did he.

A published author who helped you along the way:

Oh, so many. Isabo Kelly, a gorgeous writer, dearest friend and critique partner, and Marianne Mancusi, also a delightful and successful author, who was a guiding hand in the right direction.

Your weirdest or most reliable writing ritual/habit:

Drinking clove tea. It smells like Alexi.

Writing advice you’re glad you followed or ignored:

I’m very glad I didn’t change this book to be only one genre and kept it cross-genre. It may make it difficult at times to market, and was the reason why it didn’t sell for such a long time due to that marketing difficulty, but in the end it has greater appeal for its cross-genre qualities.

Percy spent her childhood acting Shakespeare with a ghost. What have been your favorite Shakespearean roles to play? How has your acting experience helped you as a writer? And where did you get that fabulous Miss Parker costume?

Titania in Midsummer Night’s Dream – playing a faerie Queen just rocks. Amiens, who sings all the music in As You Like It, that was pretty magical.

My theatre background influences every aspect of my writing. I’m very visual when dreaming up ideas, and the settings are very intense in my mind. I think in many ways like a cinematographer. So I’m a cinematographer for the setting of the book. For the staging, blocking, mood, structure, conflict and general goings on, I’m a director. Then for the dialogue, physicality, motivations, emotions, I’m an actor. I actually have a workshop I teach called “Direct Your Book” that addresses each of these in more detail.

As for the costume, the corset was from a shop in New York, the hat was from Mrs. Parker’s Millinery (when I was searching on-line and found Mrs. Parker – hello, that was fate.) and the skirt is from Gallery Serpentine www.galleryserpentine.com (I’d lusted after their work for many, many years and told myself I’d treat myself to one of their Victorian skirts but only when I sold my book). I put all the pieces together and it seemed to work very well. I felt so happy and at home in it.

A place you’d like to haunt in your afterlife:

Victoria Embankment – along the North bank of the Thames river, London.

Three sources of inspiration for you:

All 19^th century novelists (listing them all would take forever. Any 19^th century novelist I read became an inspiration – but particularly Gothic novelists with their interest in hauntings and Classical influences like Mythology)

Graphic and fantasy novels and fantasy films.

Music. 19^th century composers and my favourite Goth band, VNV Nation.

And the city of London goes without saying. But I’m just saying.

How did you become involved with Lady Jane’s Salon?

It started like all great things start; in a bar with wonderful company. I was the connective tissue who knew Maya Rodale, Hope Tarr and Ron Hogan, respectively. I know to always accept Ron’s invitations, something cool always happens. Maya asked “why isn’t there a reading series in NYC devoted to Romance fiction?” We didn’t have a good reason why not so that meant we had to start one. Lady Jane’s Salon showcases readers on the first Monday of every month at a red-velvet drenched bar called Madame X and the proceeds raised from $5 admission or a gently used romance novel go to Maya’s Share the Love www.share-the-love.orgstyle=’font-family:Palatino’> , which serves women in need / crisis / transition. We’re humbled and exceedingly proud of this venture that started as a dare of sorts and grew organically into a popular venue for bestsellers, debuts, all lovers of romance and most importantly, a good cause. More at www.ladyjanesalon.comstyle=’font-family:Palatino’>!

An author or book you recommend again and again:

I physically cannot pick just one–sorry. The short list of a long list: Tolkien, King, Gaiman, Rowling, Stoker, Leroux (The Phantom of the Opera), Hugo, Carroll, Poe, Dickens, Shelley, Bronte(s), Wharton, Austen.

Leanna’s website has plenty of goodies, including a contest, free short stories, videos, and her blog. Visit www.leannareneehieber.com .

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