Kimber An - Third Time’s a Charm + Contest

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Third Time’s a Charm
By Kimber An

I suppose this is most interesting to all you aspiring authors out there, but the rest of you might get a kick out of it too. It’s a glimpse into the writer’s journey.

The first time around, publication is like an endless trudge through an evil, dreaded purgatory. I like to call it Queryland. You write a novel, rewrite a novel, and rewrite it a bazillion times. Then, you put your big-girl panties on and submit it to a critique group. Some of the readers are really mean! Most are helpful though, because they’re nice folks who need your help too. My favorite online place is www.critiquecircle.com So, they help you polish that sucker up as pretty as you can.

You go surfing through all the agents’ and editors’ blogs. You do searches on ‘query’ and learn how to write a query letter and a synopsis, and it hurts really bad too! Finally, one day, you wrap up your babies and push ‘send.’

And then the Rejection Letters start rolling in.

You learn all about the soothing virtues of Dark Chocolate and you keep going, learning, rewriting, critiquing, so forth and so on. You might even start a book review blog so you can read books in your genre and mix with authors to learn the ropes of the publishing industry.

You write another novel. By this time, you may be seeking help from published authors! You find out a lot of them don’t feel qualified (that would be the newly published) and almost all of them are too insanely busy writing, editing, and promoting. But, some of them have extremely helpful resources on their websites and blogs. You devour those!

Still more would-be helpers just don’t want to see you cry.

‘Cause it’s gonna hurt. Growing up always does, you know.

Finally, you snag a mentor. In my case, that was Jacqueline Lichtenberg. http://www.simegen.com/jl/ I frequented her group blog, Alien Romances, http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com and she took the time to point the way. I’m telling you it’s like being struck by lightning, but in a good way. Still, finding a mentor is nowhere near the end. In fact, it never ends really. As a blogging book reviewer, I learned that all the best authors never stopped learning and trying to improve their craft.

Anyway, you keep writing novel after novel, learning, growing, and submitting those gosh-darn query letters. If you’re very lucky, you receive a response of some kind. Often, you never know if those letters ended up lining a kitty litter box somewhere or got sucked down a black hole in cyberspace, never to be read by anyone. You keep going, because storytellers just can’t help themselves. You’ve gotta share your stories with the world somehow!

Pretty soon, you start getting requests for sample chapters. Most of the time, you’ll get polite form rejection letters for those. Sometimes you only hear crickets in your inbox. Once in a blue moon, you might get a note like ‘not enough romance’ or something. By this point, you consider that a huge compliment! A real publishing professional took a moment to make a real comment on your story!

And then one day you get an email (or a call) full of very weird and unusual words, the most bizarre ones being “We would like to offer you a contract for…” If you haven’t cried yet, that’s when you finally break down and it’s not just because you have a wicked case of Tendonitis from all that writing.

After you recover, sign and all that, you leap for joy over your first book cover.

And then the edits start and you wonder if you’re brain’s been wired wrong because your editor often uses words that are the same as yours, but seem to mean something different. You go crying (metaphorically, I hope) to your mentor, wanting to know what the heck this all means. Uh, interpretation please?

Finally, you get through that and your book is released and you’re on the promo trail. People you’re not biologically related to or married to actually spend real money to buy your book!

And then you crank out and edit the second and that’s really cool and you find it’s a little bit easier and even more people read your books and like them. ‘Course, some people hate them, but you’ve been through so much you know everyone’s got their own point of view and you’re okay with that.

Then, the third time rolls around. You know there are no promises. No matter how hard you’ve worked or how professionally you’ve behaved, you still might not get another contract. But, you’ve made good friends and mentors. You’ve pretty much learned the language of the editing process. You discover that having two published books does garner some respect. People know you’ve been through hell and you can take it.

Wow! I put out three books in one year! How cool is that?

Yep, the third time’s a charm.

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Kimber An’s third book, Sweet Bytes, was released by Noble YA on October 17th. Here’s the blurb-

Ophelia’s escape from Martin, an Addicted Newblood, came at a terrible sacrifice. Adrian, the boy she loves, is now infected and hunted like vermin.

As her new Protector, Tristan Li represents the Oldblood determination to destroy Adrian, along with all the Newbloods, addicted or not.

In her grief, Ophelia hates everything about Tristan, until his subtle strength empowers her to resist being turned into a vampire by the High Prefect.

As Tristan helps Ophelia harness her empathic ability, his need for redemption rings in her heart. Her own strength grows, along with her passion for freedom.

The veil of mourning lifts.

The evil of Martin returns.

Ophelia seizes ownership of her destiny.

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To learn more about Kimber An and her books, pop over to her main site- www.kimberan.com and don’t forget to comment under this post to win a free ebook copy of Sweet Bytes.

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