My Two Cents

Last month, Nora Roberts posted a blog entitled “Bite Me” where she took issue with two things and spoke her mind.

I agree with every word she said. I posted the link on my Facebook page because I felt it was a valuable lesson in social media etiquette.

The gist of the blog was about two things:

1) Readers who insult other readers

2) Who writers write for

You can (and should) read the blog (it’s short) to get the backstory, but in summary, Nora’s assistant posted about Nora’s new trilogy on Nora’s Facebook page where, presumably, Nora’s readers go for information about Nora and her books. Several people posted about how her trilogies were boring and predictable and all the same. THOSE comments were ignored or smoothed over by Nora’s assistant. Then, later, a person posted that Nora’s books were boring and “didn’t take much brain power to read them.” THAT is what Nora took exception to because it was an insult to HER readers.

She commented that it’s rude to go into someone’s house and insult the host and food, but to then attack all the other guests? That’s why Nora spoke up. She was defending her people, her readers, her cyber-friends.

February 9, 2015Writing & Publishing — 19 Comments ↓

Tagged with: Allison Brennan, criticism, Facebook, Nora Roberts, reading, reviews, writing
Posted in Writing & Publishing

I Quit!!

Ten years ago today was my last day working for the California State Legislature.

Make no mistake, I used to love my job in the Legislature. I went in as a 22 year old idealist thinking I could affect change. Thirteen years later, I was cynical and bitchy. There are a lot of reasons for that, which I can’t get into without getting political. But even though I worked full-time in the Capitol, I still wrote. Because I loved writing. I’d been doing it my entire life, it seemed, but without a purpose or goal.

It took me years before I sat down and committed myself to finishing one of the many books I started, and then five manuscripts before I sold. That’s a story I’ve often told, so I won’t repeat it now. But I couldn’t have done written every night if I didn’t have a day-job to pay the bills. Most writers are like that. Most writers have a paying job–sometimes they love it, sometimes they don’t–but they write stories because writing stories is part of what makes them who they are.

January 15, 2015Allison Brennan, Writing & Publishing, Writing Life — 3 Comments ↓

Tagged with: Allison Brennan, arts, career, creativity, fear, happiness, joy, professional, publishing, quitting, writing
Posted in Allison Brennan, Writing & Publishing, Writing Life

Volume

On one of the writer’s loops I participate in, a loop with both published and aspiring writers, a conversation started about the pros and cons of writing not only fast, but releasing four or more books a year.

Now, the primary focus of this conversation began with the discussion of indie books – self-published, primarily digital books – where the “conventional wisdom” is that you must have at least five books in your body of work before you can see a serious uptick in sales. I put “conventional wisdom” in quotes because some indie authors have broken out big with one or two books, others have never earned a living even after twenty books.

Not so ironically, this is the same with traditional publishing.

January 12, 2015Allison Brennan, Writing & Publishing — 13 Comments ↓

Tagged with: book series, writing, writing fast
Posted in Allison Brennan, Writing & Publishing

NOTORIOUS, Part Two

I know the mass market paperback world very well. I’ve had 22 mass market originals released … not including novellas in anthologies. I write the book, I revise the book, it goes through an editor, a copy editor, and a proofreader or two, is printed the month before the release date, warehoused, and distributed. I’ve been fortunate that my publishers have, for the most part, been able to prevent too many sales prior to the on-sale date, which helps with opening week sales numbers, which helps with list placement. I understand the process and, even with the rapid and rabid changes in the industry over the last few years, I still get it. I understand the timing of writing and revising and production, and I understand that there is a limited shelf life to the paperback original.

So when my first hardcover was published last March, I was introduced to a whole new process. It surprised–and scared me!

December 30, 2014Allison Brennan, Books, Books, Books! — 11 Comments ↓

Tagged with: Allison Brennan, Lucy Kincaid, mass market, Max Revere, Notorious, paperbacks, publication
Posted in Allison Brennan, Books, Books, Books!

Elizabeth Heiter: Researching a Suspense Novel

Researching a Suspense Novel

I’ve never worked for the FBI. Never participated in a multi-agency investigation of a series of child abductions that happened over almost two decades. Never interviewed suspects, been threatened by suspects, or been tackled by a suspect. And I’ve never investigated the unsolved disappearance of my own best friend.

But my FBI profiler – Evelyn Baine, the heroine of my Profiler series books – had to do all of these things for the second book in the series, VANISHED. Since I like to write novels with a strong sense of realism, that means I needed to know how to do all these things, too.

December 29, 2014Our Guests & Friends, Writing & Publishing — 1 Comment ↓

Tagged with: Elizabeth Heiter, Research, romantic suspense, Vanished
Posted in Our Guests & Friends, Writing & Publishing

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Allison Brennan

Allison Brennan is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty-four romantic thrillers and mysteries, including the Lucy Kincaid series and the Max Revere series. She lives in Northern California with her husband and five children.

Maximum Exposure
February 4, 2014

Two years before the events in Notorious, Max travels to Colorado Springs to investigate the disappearance of a college student. Frustrated over the lack of interest from both friends of the victim and campus authorities, Max tags along with the leader of search and rescue and his dog through the beautiful and deadly Rocky Mountains in the hopes of finding answers. Every answer she finds leads to more questions--questions neither the police nor the college want Max asking.
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