Just wanted to drop in and let you know that I have an official publication date for WHERE SOULS COLLIDE. It's going to be on store shelves August 2007.
My original offer date was for Spring, but this works just as well. It gives me more time to work on promotion for the book. Speaking of which, I'll be participating in my first major event this Saturday --a book fair at the Macomb County Library. I'll have Valentine's Day candy, postcards and business cards to hand out as well as a sign up sheet for all those folks missing out on my e-updates. Drop by ifyou're in the 'hood. ;)
I've created a special web page for WHERE SOULS COLLIDE at www.booksbystef.com. Be sure to take a look at the book teaser at www.stefanieworth.com/souls_trailer and let me know what you think. I hope to have other news for you in the next few weeks.
'Til then (for those of us who aren't in the South), stay warm! As always -- thanks for your support.
Stefanie
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Never Just a Book
OK. You can’t hear me but I’m taking deep, deliberate breaths. Despite the effort, my heart still pounds every fourth beat or so. To soothe the growing ache, I exhale, mouth open, nostrils flared. And I stare.
“I think I can. I think I can,” I tell myself. “It’s just a book.”
Ha.
Sure.
“That’s why you haven’t touched it since you brought it home.”
Mind you, this is progress.
I stared at the title for months. Every time I went to a bookstore, there it was. The author demanded my attention and I ignored him as best I could. Until yesterday. He obviously caught me off guard.
How could I fend him off with an armful of Geronimo Stilton mouse detective books, a Barbie diary, stuffed duck, and AP Bio Study Guide? Trapped by my weakened state, I was forced into the novel’s snare and rescued it from the shelf. It teetered atop my load, stretching my wallet and my mind.
“What could possibly be inside there that you can’t handle? Was The Stand so bad? The Dark Half or Carrie?”
No. Or so I thought. That is, after all, how he hooked me. I was young and impressionable, trying to hone a style and find my genre. I absorbed everything he wrote and then one day, I got scared. Like when I snuck and read The Exorcist kind of scared. (Slept with the light on for weeks after that one.) So I broke off my love-hate relationship with Stephen King. Until yesterday.
Lisey’s Story has spent her second day on the end table, where the glowering red hardcover hasn’t budged since I brought it home. There beside I Dream A World, I can pretend it harbors gentle thoughts and tranquil endings.
Breathe.
“You used to live for that stuff. King’s stuff. Stay up all night to inhale hundreds of his pages by daylight.” I know, I know.
Many years later, what I also know is that – twisted as Stephen is – he guides a gifted pen. Weaving words is all-consuming. Those of us who do it understand how stories demand to be told. The ways they push your mind into spaces begging to be explored and exposed. Whether real or imaginary, cityscape or dream world, we authors go there – and take you with us.
Given time, Stephen’s lure – Lisey’s Story – will ask me to ride shotgun down a road that forbids sleep. If I make it to the end, page 509, I’m sure I’ll close it with a shudder. Then I’ll clear the book a spot on the shelf, plunge back into my own journey, and marvel.
A trek that started with a paperback purchase in the seventh grade led me to become a supernatural suspense fan. A high school English teacher’s grade alluded to a future as writer, not just reader. Piles of manuscript pages later, I’m ready to lead you into stories I hope you’ll follow.
My aspiration? To never write "just a book," but rather, words that sing like Maya Angelou, tattle like Toni Morrison and haunt like Stephen King.
(Well, not quite.)
'Til next time . . .sweet dreams.
Stefanie
www.StefanieWorth.com
“I think I can. I think I can,” I tell myself. “It’s just a book.”
Ha.
Sure.
“That’s why you haven’t touched it since you brought it home.”
Mind you, this is progress.
I stared at the title for months. Every time I went to a bookstore, there it was. The author demanded my attention and I ignored him as best I could. Until yesterday. He obviously caught me off guard.
How could I fend him off with an armful of Geronimo Stilton mouse detective books, a Barbie diary, stuffed duck, and AP Bio Study Guide? Trapped by my weakened state, I was forced into the novel’s snare and rescued it from the shelf. It teetered atop my load, stretching my wallet and my mind.
“What could possibly be inside there that you can’t handle? Was The Stand so bad? The Dark Half or Carrie?”
No. Or so I thought. That is, after all, how he hooked me. I was young and impressionable, trying to hone a style and find my genre. I absorbed everything he wrote and then one day, I got scared. Like when I snuck and read The Exorcist kind of scared. (Slept with the light on for weeks after that one.) So I broke off my love-hate relationship with Stephen King. Until yesterday.
Lisey’s Story has spent her second day on the end table, where the glowering red hardcover hasn’t budged since I brought it home. There beside I Dream A World, I can pretend it harbors gentle thoughts and tranquil endings.
Breathe.
“You used to live for that stuff. King’s stuff. Stay up all night to inhale hundreds of his pages by daylight.” I know, I know.
Many years later, what I also know is that – twisted as Stephen is – he guides a gifted pen. Weaving words is all-consuming. Those of us who do it understand how stories demand to be told. The ways they push your mind into spaces begging to be explored and exposed. Whether real or imaginary, cityscape or dream world, we authors go there – and take you with us.
Given time, Stephen’s lure – Lisey’s Story – will ask me to ride shotgun down a road that forbids sleep. If I make it to the end, page 509, I’m sure I’ll close it with a shudder. Then I’ll clear the book a spot on the shelf, plunge back into my own journey, and marvel.
A trek that started with a paperback purchase in the seventh grade led me to become a supernatural suspense fan. A high school English teacher’s grade alluded to a future as writer, not just reader. Piles of manuscript pages later, I’m ready to lead you into stories I hope you’ll follow.
My aspiration? To never write "just a book," but rather, words that sing like Maya Angelou, tattle like Toni Morrison and haunt like Stephen King.
(Well, not quite.)
'Til next time . . .sweet dreams.
Stefanie
www.StefanieWorth.com
Friday, December 22, 2006
The Call!!
Every writer craves The Call. That’s the day your phone rings and an editor or agent says the words, “We’d like to make an offer for your book.” When I last blogged (on October 14th), I alluded to great things happening in my life. That’s because my Call came on October 10th.
It was Tuesday afternoon and I was at work. My smartphone buzzed and a text message popped up that I almost ignored. Tekkie that I am, I have mobile mail, so I’m alerted whenever I get a new personal email. Curious, I logged on and opened my inbox. And there it was:
“Thank you for allowing Dorchester to consider your manuscript, WHERE SOULS COLLIDE. I would like to make an offer to publish for 2007.”
The email was from Monica Harris, now my editor. I called her back to discuss the terms, as she’d requested, and found out they wanted to publish the book in the Spring and she needed my full manuscript.
Backtrack here. Part of the reason the offer was so exciting is because it came on a partial. Translation for non-writers means that the process went a little different for me than it does for many first-time writers. Typically, you send off a query letter and the first three chapters of your book. If they like it, the editor writes back and asks for the full manuscript. Then, if they want to publish, they make you an offer. However, once you’ve published a book, many editors will make an offer on proposal. That’s a partial from an incomplete book. So, because I’m a first-timer, getting an offer on my partial was quite an honor.
Now back to The Call.
I asked Monica for time to think about her offer. I contacted an agent who’d expressed a belated interest in the book (at that time titled INKLING) only to find that she felt there wasn’t much she could do since I’d already accepted the offer. I talked to my critique partners, one of whom uses a literary attorney to review her contracts, pays the lawyer a flat fee and keeps the 15 percent (of everything) that would otherwise go to an agent.
In addition to all the external folk, I chatted this over (incessantly) with my husband. Called my family and friends and accepted the offer two days later. That was Thursday. I then dashed off to Staples for proper manuscript mailing supplies and spent the weekend giving the book one last read before shipping it off. And, yes, printing 400+ pages in 12 point Courier will use an entire ink cartridge. (I now have several extras on hand.)
Monica received the priority mail package on the 18th and my waiting began. Colleagues and critique partners warned me that the writing world moves slowly. It would be 4-6 weeks at least before I received my contract. One colleague said hers took “a good” two months. Didn’t matter. I ‘bout wore the mailbox out checking it every day.
Then, finally, (actually two months to the day from when Monica received the full), I arrived home to find an oversized envelope sticking out of the mailbox. And it said Dorchester in the corner. Woo hoo! (Stole that phrase from a friend.)
Since then, I’ve faxed off the contract to a literary attorney for review. I have to return it before Jan. 2nd. I’ve talked to my editor who tells me my editorial letter (and revisions I presume) will be mailed “before Christmas.” Guess how I’ll be spending my holiday vacation?
I wouldn’t dare complain about the work ahead. I’ve been writing since I was ten and I am so ready for this.
Till next time –
Peace!
Stefanie
www.stefanieworth.com
www.booksbystef.com
It was Tuesday afternoon and I was at work. My smartphone buzzed and a text message popped up that I almost ignored. Tekkie that I am, I have mobile mail, so I’m alerted whenever I get a new personal email. Curious, I logged on and opened my inbox. And there it was:
“Thank you for allowing Dorchester to consider your manuscript, WHERE SOULS COLLIDE. I would like to make an offer to publish for 2007.”
The email was from Monica Harris, now my editor. I called her back to discuss the terms, as she’d requested, and found out they wanted to publish the book in the Spring and she needed my full manuscript.
Backtrack here. Part of the reason the offer was so exciting is because it came on a partial. Translation for non-writers means that the process went a little different for me than it does for many first-time writers. Typically, you send off a query letter and the first three chapters of your book. If they like it, the editor writes back and asks for the full manuscript. Then, if they want to publish, they make you an offer. However, once you’ve published a book, many editors will make an offer on proposal. That’s a partial from an incomplete book. So, because I’m a first-timer, getting an offer on my partial was quite an honor.
Now back to The Call.
I asked Monica for time to think about her offer. I contacted an agent who’d expressed a belated interest in the book (at that time titled INKLING) only to find that she felt there wasn’t much she could do since I’d already accepted the offer. I talked to my critique partners, one of whom uses a literary attorney to review her contracts, pays the lawyer a flat fee and keeps the 15 percent (of everything) that would otherwise go to an agent.
In addition to all the external folk, I chatted this over (incessantly) with my husband. Called my family and friends and accepted the offer two days later. That was Thursday. I then dashed off to Staples for proper manuscript mailing supplies and spent the weekend giving the book one last read before shipping it off. And, yes, printing 400+ pages in 12 point Courier will use an entire ink cartridge. (I now have several extras on hand.)
Monica received the priority mail package on the 18th and my waiting began. Colleagues and critique partners warned me that the writing world moves slowly. It would be 4-6 weeks at least before I received my contract. One colleague said hers took “a good” two months. Didn’t matter. I ‘bout wore the mailbox out checking it every day.
Then, finally, (actually two months to the day from when Monica received the full), I arrived home to find an oversized envelope sticking out of the mailbox. And it said Dorchester in the corner. Woo hoo! (Stole that phrase from a friend.)
Since then, I’ve faxed off the contract to a literary attorney for review. I have to return it before Jan. 2nd. I’ve talked to my editor who tells me my editorial letter (and revisions I presume) will be mailed “before Christmas.” Guess how I’ll be spending my holiday vacation?
I wouldn’t dare complain about the work ahead. I’ve been writing since I was ten and I am so ready for this.
Till next time –
Peace!
Stefanie
www.stefanieworth.com
www.booksbystef.com
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