I’d like to welcome my very dear friend, fabulous crit partner, and very talented author, Edie Ramer to the MSW House!

Huge thanks to Karin for inviting me here today.   In her invite, she suggested I write about my journey to being an indie author. The thing is,  www.edieramer.com/books/cattitude won’t be on Kindle, Smashwords, etc. for a few weeks yet, and I thought maybe I should wait until it’s out.  Then I came to my senses and emailed her back and said “Yes, thank you, Goddess Karin.”  (I didn’t really call her a goddess, but she is.)  This is a great opportunity and I’m not saying no to opportunities.

That’s kind of how my journey started six years ago, with an opportunity to join a critique group, and Karin and I became CPs.  I was published in mystery short stories, but I’d switched from mysteries to romance.  I was writing my second romance, CATTITUDE.  Not long after it was done, I found an agent.  She shopped it to all the NY houses but couldn’t sell it.  Within a year, she quit the business and I was working on a different book.  And another book.  And another.

My goal was to sell to a print pub.  When friends were giving up on print and selling to e-pubs, I wouldn’t do it.  It’s not that I disdain e-books, but it wasn’t my dream.  Along the way, I won contests with 4 different books and was an American Title V finalist.  I’ve come close to selling.  I get rejection letters telling me to send the next book.  I must be one of the most stubborn people in the world, because I kept slogging onward, thinking if I just wrote a better book with a better hook it would happen.

That’s like skipping along the same street each day and falling down the hole.  Knowledge changed me.  I write the Industry News column for the <a href=”http://www.rwa-wf.com/”>RWA-WF chapter</a>, so I was searching for any news about the business.  The biggest thing in the publishing industry lately is digital books and independent publishing.  I’m not talking about e-pubs (though there’s nothing wrong with that), but about self-publishing. 

I started reading Dean Wesley Smith’s <a href=”http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?page_id=860″>Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing</a> posts.  They aren’t about indie publishing, but about taking control of your career.  I also kept running into <a href=”http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/”>J.A. Konrath’s blogs</a>, in which he talks about making more money with his self-pubbed Kindle books than his traditionally published books.

I can remember writing in one of the Industry News posts that Konrath does so well because he’s already published and people know his name and reputation.  But then he interviewed <a href=”http://www.karenmcquestion.com/”>Karen McQuestion</a>.  She was an unpublished writer who put her books on Kindle about a year previously.  In that one year, she outsold Konrath and she’s the first self-published writer to have a book optioned for film.

That blew away my excuses.  As soon as I read that blog, I decided to self-publish CATTITUDE.  Of all the books on my website, that’s the one people ask about.  It’s another opportunity I’m saying, yes to.  I’m not walking down that same street with the big hole in it anymore, I’m skipping down a new street.

Because I don’t have an editor, I asked writer friends to look at my book.  My first beta reader said she could see why my agent had a hard time placing it.  “It’s too sweet for a ‘true’ RS, and too romancy for a mystery, and not dark enough to call it ‘paranormal’.  It’s too in-between and different to fit most genres.”

 She’s right, and I feel such relief that I made this decision.  For good or bad, I’m taking control of my own career.  I’m being proactive, and it’s energizing and exciting. The market for print books seems to be shrinking.  So are advances.  Self-publishing is an opportunity I can’t say, no to. 

 Since I’ve announced what I’m doing, other writers have told me they’re considering self-publishing or they’re going to watch to see how it works out for me.  Published writers as well as unpublished.  I’m curious whether any of you are thinking of self-publishing, even if it’s out-of-print books.  Has your opinion of indie publishing changed recently?

 <a href=”http://edieramer.com”>Edie Ramer http://edieramer.com</a>

 Karin here, I read CATTITUDE many years ago, I loved it then, I love it now.  I can’t wait for it to go live!  Edie, thank you! 

It’s time. Past time actually.  It’s time for this brand new Grandma to say no to her daughter, son-in-law and, god help her, her granddaughter.  If I don’t, I will never write another book!  But it’s so hard…

Here’s the thing: since that little beauty came into my world she has been the biggest distraction imaginable.  She lives here with her parents in my house.  My office is right next to her room.  I hear her cooing and babbling in the morning.  I cannot possibly sit there and not go in and say hello.  Which leads to me picking her up, how can I resist? Which leads to hugs and kisses and maybe a diaper change and my daughter yawning and asking if I could take her just for an hour so she can catch up on her sleep.  My granddaughter smiles at me and I can’t say no.

The morning waxes into early afternoon.  I let my daughter sleep.  I remember those days.  I didn’t have family around to take the baby/ies so I could sleep.  I was on my own. And yes, I did it.  I did it with multiple kids and running two full time businesses.  Sleep?  What the hell was that?  But, when I look at my granddaughter, I just melt.

I have another huge distraction of late as well.  This one gives me the opportunity to think of nothing except getting my hands dirty.  I’m talking about serious gardening.  In the last month, I have spent a small fortune on containers, soil, plants, hoses, fertilizer, mulch, more containers, more soil, and more plants then you can shake a stick at.  I have lovingly potted, planted, seeded and pruned over a dozen blooming pots, in the ground plants and ground cover, half a dozen herb pots plus tomatoes and pepper pots. I created five beautiful hanging fuchsia baskets (which were a royal PIA but I loved the process). I rediscovered how truly beautiful dahlias are.  I now have three lovely pots of them. 

I just planted three five-gallon purple and fuchsia hydrangeas.  I never knew the perfect place for them was under my front living room window.  The begonias are blooming as are the New Guinea inpatients. My basil is taking over the pot. The Scarlet Pimpernel Mandevilla loves its sunny spot on the side of the house. Gardening has become almost as addictive as my granddaughter has.  Each morning I go outside and carefully water the containers.  I pluck dead heads, spray for pests, pinch off shriveled leaves and look for new growth.  I actually clapped when I discovered new growth on a fuchsia I thought I had pruned to death. There it was, a small tender green shoot, right there in the middle of the hacked up plant.

My parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme are green and frothy with health.  My geraniums pots are bursting with a kaleidoscope of color. Not only are my blooms blooming but so is the fauna, faunaing. We have several visitors this year.  More than any previous year I can remember.  Two pair of robins have nested over the koi pond, two sets of morning doves have also taken up residence.  One on top of a patio column and the other under the pavilion.  We have a family of scrub jays in the cypress, a hummingbird family in the magnolia tree out front, a nest of finches just across the driveway in the sycamore tree, and covey of California partridges holing up in the gargantuan lavender bush by the mailbox.

My yard is just bursting with new life.  I sit out back with my granddaughter, Gianna, on my lap and we are quiet.  She loves the waterfall on the koi pond and the sounds of the birds all around her.  She will literally sit with me, quiet and observing for as long as I sit there.  Her mom is as in tune with flora and fauna as I am. I think Gianna will follow in our footsteps.  I can’t wait until she can walk with me through the garden and help tend the flowers.  And it will be yet another most happy distraction.

So tell me, what is your most happy distraction?

It’s easy, especially in this crappy economy to be grumpy and look around and notice what we don’t have.  I mean, we work our butts off, shouldn’t we have it all?  I certainly feel as if  have earned certain things in my life, but fate, or whoever/whatever is in charge of handing us what we deserve didn’t get the memo that Karin Tabke deserves it all!

Yesterday all of us murderous ladies had a marathon conversation about this crazy business called publishing.  And once I was done having my little pity party, and went downstairs, the sweetest picture in the world emerged: my granddaughter smiling so brightly at me as I walked into the room that her entire body shimmied and shook. I instantly let go of a lot of the crap I’d been holding onto. 

It was like I just opened my fists and it all fell away.  For me, a worker and one who generally does not whine or complain but just does it, I do have my moments where I need to vent.  As I did yesterday, and God love them, my fellow murderous gals were there. I look at each one of them and think wow, what fabulous women!   I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you are defined by who you call friend.  I’m rich beyond measure, and remembering that, coupled with my granddaughter’s sunburst smile, it grabbed me, shook me, and made me realize, just how blessed I am. 

Later in the evening when I took my youngest son down to his grandfather’s to pick up some camping gear and I watched the two of them interact, I had to laugh at my father-in-law’s parting words to his youngest grandson (who is leaving for a 3 day camping trip this morning with 16 of his best friends): “Will, don’t get into any shit.” This from a man who in the thirty years I have known him, have heard him say shit maybe three times (my mother-law?  She’s Italian, she more than makes up for dad’s politeness).  My fil just does not swear. My smile, even during the momentous occasion (him swearing) was a bittersweet smile.  My fil is slowing down.  He has some health issues, we worry about him. So I am grateful for every day he is here.

It’s really during these quiet poignant moments that I’m reminded that while I have the essentials by which to exist:  a roof over my head, food, water, I could not really live if I was not blessed with the greatest gifts of all, my family, good friends and a job that I love despite the frustrations it often creates.

So, while I’m feeling melancholy, I have a $15 BN gift card up for grabs. To be eligible to win, just tell me, what is your greatest blessing?

I’d like you all to give my good friend and the nicest person in publishing, Cindy Gerard, a warm MSW welcome! (oh, and that hunk ‘olicious pictured below is RISK NO SECRETS hero Wyatt Savage, the pretty lady is Cindy  )

And The Years Roll By

     Sometimes I have to sit back, take a deep breath and remind myself that once upon a time my goal had been to write a book someone would want to
buy.  Amazingly, after 4 rejections it actually happened.  That was a few years ago and this week I’m celebrating the release of my 43rd novel and I’m working on #44.  When I sold that first book, I never dreamed I’d be looking at 44 books (and counting). I’m not going to take you back through the maze that prompted all those books but I would like to tell you a little about how Black Ops., Inc. came to be and about RISK NO SECRETS, Book 5, in the BOI series that  officially hit the bookshelves this past Tuesday, May 18th! (Yea!)

     I started out on the BOI quest some time ago with the intention of writing a 3 book series about a group of elite shadow warriors who fought for freedom and justice even after they had parted ways with Uncle Sam.   It all began in a back alley behind a seedy cantina in Buenos Aires where the hero and heroine of my 6th Bodyguard book, Into The Dark, had found themselves boxed into a corner with the baddest of
the bad guys closing in. I had no idea how they were going to get  themselves out of their fix when out of the shadows, stepped Gabriel – the Archangel – Jones.

     Gabe was larger than life, totally unexpected and on the dark side of shady.  It was lust at first sight on my part.  I didn’t know who this guy was or where he’d come from but one thing I did know: THIS man was amazing. THIS man was going to have his own book!!

     So when Gabe, in turn, introduced me to his buddies, the stoic Sam Lang and the outrageous flirt, Johnny Duane Reed, I had my 3 heroes and Black Ops., Inc. was born. But, guys like these, capable, courageous, loyal and well, hot, they had to have some buddies, right?  So I tossed in their boss at BOI, Nate Black, the cute Latino, Rafael Mendoza, and then stirred two former CIA agents, ‘Mean’ Joe Green, and Wyatt – Papa
Bear – Savage into the mix.

     I should have known that these secondary characters were going to demand stories of their own. That worked out pretty well because as it turned out, I heard from a LOT of readers who also wanted to hear their stories which meant my publisher wanted more, too. It was a win/win all the way around. (Thank you all by the way, for putting the first 4 BOI books on the New York Times! I’m still stunned over that turn of events and I owe it all to you!)

     Anyway, RISK NO SECRETS is Wyatt Savage’s story.  This slow talkin’ Georgia boy — Papa Bear to his buddies — was content playing wing man until someone very special to him ended up in trouble and needed his help. And that’s when Wyatt willingly stepped up to the plate and into a true hero’s role. I love this story about Wyatt and Sophie. I love the action, the surprises I discovered about Wyatt, and the love story that survived in spite of all odds against it.

     Naturally, I hope you’re going rush right out and buy RISK NO SECRETS but most of all, I hope that if you do, that you love the story as much as I do.

     Just to whet your appetite, here’s a link to an excerpt
http://www.cindygerard.com/excerpt_may2010.html
AND here’s a link to the book video. http://www.cindygerard.com/
AND, a little something extra if you click this link
http://www.simonandschuster.com/search?term=cindy+gerard it will take you to the Simon and Schuster website and you can check out several short videos of me talking about the books. How’s that for a test drive or two to help you decide to buy the product?

     Seriously, check it out and then come back and make a comment about either the excerpt, the book trailer or the videos featuring moi ) OR about your favorite BOI character OR about your favorite hero of all the books you’ve read and I’ll send an autographed copy of RISK NO SECRETS to a randomly selected winner.

BTW — thanks for letting me join you today, ladies.  You guys rock!
www.cindygerard.com

Thank you for taking time out of your very busy schedule and visiting us today, Cindy!