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!
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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.