Shannon Mayer writes paranormal romance and is the author of the Nevermore Trilogy: Sundered (Book I); Bound (Book II); and recently-released Dauntless (Book III). One reviewer wrote this about Sundered:
It’s all YOUR FAULT! Today my hair is a mess because I overslept and couldn’t get ready for my meeting without being rushed and I hit traffic because I left a few minutes later than I normally would have, which made me 10 minutes late for my meeting in New Minas…because YOU wrote a book that…was so good that I just kept on reading because I wanted to know what was gonna happen next and then it was 2 am and the book was done and now I have to WAIT for the next one? AAARRRGGHHHHH!
How’s that for writing that brings your readers to the brink and has them begging for more? Wow! The reviews for Dauntless suggest that this kind of energy (and pull) in her writing holds out all the way to the end of the trilogy.
By day, Shannon is a farrier, and like most of us, balancing the day job with the passion to write can be a struggle. Never mind the drive it takes to carry your writing all the way to publication. Today, Shannon shares her story of how getting published is never easy, but it’s possible. And, the benefits run deeper than a finished book in hand. Welcome, Shannon!
*****
My publication journey has not been the smoothest of roads. Though I suppose that not too many writers can say that they have had an easy time seeing their books in print. The first thing I did was write a full length, 90,000 word piece of crap that I had edited and then sent out to agents. As you can imagine, it didn’t even get a single request of the five agencies that I sent out to.
After that I moped around for a bit. Got mad. Wrote another full length novel, this one with no regard to what anyone would think and had it edited. Worked with the editor and readers for a good year on it. Queried agents, got requests to see the manuscript. Got rejected. Again.
Sucked it up, re-wrote sections of the manuscript, edited some more, paid for a conference in Seattle and went, with as much confidence as I could muster. I sat down at my first agent appointment, she requested the material; I handed her a submissions package. Thing went fast from there. The agent had me signed to her agency within a week of meeting me. It was a very exciting time.
Then it was more submissions, now to publishing houses. More rejections. No suggestions though from the house editors on how to make the manuscript better. In fact, I got a lot of praise from the editors. They just couldn’t figure out where to put my manuscript. It was a genre buster and didn’t really fit in anywhere. Damn.
My agent seemed to lose steam after 4 rejections, and I began to wonder what was the next step. With my agent uncertain as to what I should be doing (I did ask, she said she didn’t know) I set my sights on self publishing some novellas. Not only would this give me a goal to work towards; it would keep me writing, and keep me from worrying about what the agent was doing or not doing, whichever the case was at the time.
I decided on a trilogy, started them in June 2011 and had the idea I would have the first 2 books in the trilogy out on Amazon by September 1st 2011. I lined up editors, copy editors, beta readers, proof readers and a cover artist.
Working like a mad woman in between my regular job hours I was able to get the first book out on September 2nd and the second book out on September 15th. The third book I published on October 31st.
So, where does that leave me? Agented, self published and still seeking a traditional publishing contract with a major publishing house. More importantly, it leaves me writing, and loving it.
Read more of Shannon’s work on her blog, follow her on Twitter, or like her page on Facebook. You can also purchase her books, including her most recent one, DAUNTLESS, on Amazon or on Smashwords.
Sounds familiar, except for the landing an agent part (yes, I know that’s a big part – congrats to Shannon on that). I found that continuing to write, between, around, and over the top of all of the rest of this nutty biz is the best course. That, and having another gig that keeps it all real. I got a kick out of Shannon’s. 😉
Great post, Shannon. Thanks for having her, Christi. Good to know I won’t be alone if I take the indy-pub side road, and that I can still love what I do in the meanwhile.
Thanks Christi for this awesome post! You pulled out one of my favorite reviews of all tiime, I laughed so hard once I realized the reader wasn’t REALLY upset. ;p Again, this is fabulous, you did a great job of putting this all together.
You’re welcome, Shannon. Thank YOU for sharing your experience here. I love how you end your post with the most important piece: that through it all, we keep writing and keep rediscovering our passion.
And that review, it’s the best!
Thanks for introducing me to Shannon, Christi. It might be the mantra of the “new” generation of writers, it might be the best experience any of us can have, or it could be the best way to keep writing what we love. No matter how you slice it Shannon, your piece of the pie is sweeter because you baked it. I have written six novels, two novellas and two series of short stories in four years. The literary novella is on submission with small press, the novels are what I will submit to agents/trad. publishers and I am using the short stories to create a series of novella trilogies I will publish (perhaps through Smashwords) … a group of us will start a collective and learn how to promote each other. I do not intend to self publish any of my novels, but I want to keep writing stories and if possible find one or two readers like the one Christi quoted 🙂
I will find you, especially since I love paranormal sans vampires and werewolves. I don’t think you mentioned those. Great good things to you, Shannon. Keep working, keep writing !
Thank you Florence! You’re right, my pie tastes pretty dang good ;p And having reader feedback is so important, especially when you take a step in the direction of self publishing. Even with the advent of Amazon and all that comes with e-books, it still can scary to put your work out there without a publishing house behind you. Getting reviews where readers can’t get enough makes it all worth it.
Hi Christi,
Just letting you know I have awarded you the Liebster Blog Award 🙂 I am not sure if you completely qualify but I don’t care. I love your blog and wanted to share it with others. Enjoy!
Susannah
Susannah, Thank you so much for the award — so very kind! I stopped by briefly this morning, but I plan on heading over to your blog again to check out the other blogs you mention.