Karen Sandler

Tag: exhibit a

  • Horse Trading, and Is Your Writing Really Ready?

    Gal canterBack in July, I blogged about how I was shopping for a new horse. I compared the process to figuring out which of the multitude of writing projects you might want to work on next. Then a few weeks later, I whined about my broken ankle and how difficult it is to wait–for an ankle to heal or for a writing career to get up and running.

    Well, my ankle is now ready for prime time (or horseback riding), but my search for a new riding partner has thus far not borne fruit. It’s not for lack of trying. It turns out to be harder than I thought to find a horse in my price range with the kind of training I’m looking for. To find one that’s not too young and not too old. To find one that’s been actually ridden and worked recently rather than hanging around getting fat out in a pasture.

    PEC 5-22-04 Indy Trot flipSo far, I’ve seriously considered more than a dozen horses. Sometimes I never even went to ride them because my trainer and I looked at video and saw they wouldn’t work for me. Others we rejected because the owners refused to send us recent video. If horse is a couple hours drive away, I want to see video first. I’d hate to drive all that way to see a horse and have it turn out be a waste of time, time I could have saved if I’d seen the way the horse moves.

    While there were a few I’ve gone to look at which were nice, but I just didn’t click with, there have also been several with peculiar stories:

    •    There was the 8-year-old that I’d thought was trained, but had barely had a few months under saddle
    •    There was the 11-year-old that hadn’t been ridden in four years. I wouldn’t have even visited this horse, except every time I asked the owner about how much work the horse had done, the story changed until I finally found out the truth when I went to see it.
    •    There were two with unusual medical problems—no fault of the horses, or the owners (they were honest), but it sure explained how cheap they were.
    •    My favorite was the “imaginary” horse. I responded to an ad and the seller sent video of a wonderful mare. But when my trainer and I tried to make plans to go see the mare in person and ride her, we were told someone else was buying the horse. The seller said if I sent half-payment, she would cancel the other deal and put the mare on a horse trailer for me. Sight unseen. Um, no.
    •    There was the lovely gelding that the seller insisted on full price for, which I reluctantly agreed to, then she refused to take a cashier’s check as payment. Cash only, she said, because she didn’t have a bank account (!). I said no thanks.
    •    There was the seller who had sent pictures of her gelding including closeups of the horse’s feet (the condition of the hooves is a very important consideration). The pictures she herself had sent showed chips, cracks, and nail holes from previous shoeings, yet the seller said the horse had great feet that never chipped, cracked, or needed shoes. My farrier gave that one a thumbs down.

    PEC 9-26-10I always like to turn my personal stories into object lessons for writers. In this case, I can see a bit of an analogy between the various horse traders and writers I’ve known who have finished a manuscript. They think they’ve got a wonderful, polished piece of work. They’re absolutely certain their manuscript is in fantastic shape, ready to hit the marketplace. They’re anticipating a huge advance for a book as great as theirs is. They’re also sure they won’t have the least problem selling it.

    Then reality hits when they submit their books to agents or editors. It gets rejected again and again: Not right for us or Not suitable.

    It could be that your book just didn’t click with an agent, like those two horses I rode that were nice, but not for me. But it’s more likely you didn’t put in your time with that book to make it irresistible.

    Sometimes buyers are glad to put in the time on an untrained horse if they see its potential. By the same token you might find an agent or editor who will see a gem in the rough with your book and be willing to help you get it polished. But just as there are far fewer buyers out there with the skill and inclination to re-make a green horse into a show-ready champion, you will be hard-pressed to find an editor/agent who’s willing to make your rough draft manuscript into a polished bestseller.

    So put that training on your horse…er, polish up that manuscript. And improve your chance of finding the agent or editor of your dreams.

    Buy the first two books of the Tankborn science fiction trilogy: Tankborn and Awakening. Buy Clean Burn, a crime novel featuring private investigator Janelle Watkins.

  • Happy Book Birthday to Me-e-e!

    Full CoverHip, hip hooray! After all the waiting-waiting-waiting, the book birthday for Clean Burn has finally arrived. Here’s a short blurb:

    Wry, smart, tough private eye Janelle Watkins swore off investigating child abductions four years ago, when she left the San Francisco PD. But when two clients with missing children beg for her help,  Janelle can’t say no. Even though it means returning to the scene of her nightmares – her hometown of Greenville.

    Forced to enlist the help of her ex-partner and ex-lover, Greenville County Sheriff Ken Heinz, Janelle soon finds herself playing with fire in more than one way, and in a race against the clock to find the missing children before it’s too late.

    Here’s what some bestselling authors have said about Clean Burn:

    “Karen Sandler’s Clean Burn is a taut, timely thriller ripped from today’s headlines. Blisteringly paced, authentically told, here is a novel that demands to be read in a single sitting. I can’t wait to strap on a side arm and join Watkins for her next case.”
    – James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of the Sigma series

    “Clean Burn is a guilty pleasure. Curl up for a snappy pace, and an ex cop P.I. heroine with attitude, and a haunted past.”
    – Lynn Hightower, author of The Piper and The Debt Collector

    “Chilling, engrossing and addicting from page one! Karen Sandler weaves a tight, tense mystery, and with Janelle Watkins gives us an honest, tough, and flawed heroine – I can’t wait to read what comes next for this exciting character.”
    – Brenda Novak, author of When Snow Falls and When Lightning Strikes

    Published by Exhibit A Books in the UK, distributed in the US by Random House, you should be able to find copies in chain stores like Barnes & Noble as well as your local indies.

    If you’d like to save yourself the petrol and the footwork, you can order Clean Burn online at Amazon or Barnes and Noble or other online bookselling establishments. Or try these great indie bookstores: Sacramento’s Avid Reader, Reno’s Sundance Books, or DC’s Politics & Prose. If you know of other fab independent bookstores in either the US or UK, please share them in the comments.

    And watch out for the confetti and the helium balloons. They’re getting pretty thick in here. 🙂

  • A Broken Ankle, a Writing Career, and Playing the Long Game

    Fracture Both Feet CropA few weeks ago, I fractured my right fibula (the smaller bone on the outside of your ankle). I wasn’t doing anything particularly fun or dangerous. I was kind of trotting toward a local pet store, planning to ask to use the bathroom. I leapt up onto the sidewalk, and when the outer edge of my boot hit a groove in the concrete, my foot rolled under. Crunch.

    I’d hoped it was just a sprain, in fact had to be talked into going to the doctor. I’m now in an attractive (not) “cam boot” that keeps my ankle stable. The boot is far better than a cast because I can take it off to shower, or to scratch an itch.

    But here’s the thing–I’m a fairly active person. I’m in the habit of working out at the gym 3 times a week, dancing at least once a week, and before I sold my mare, I was riding 3-4 times a week. I was in the middle of horse-shopping for a new horse (which I blogged about here). In fact, that day I broke my ankle, my trainer and I were about to head out to try a horse. My trainer thinks it was fate that it happened since the horse we were going to check out wasn’t a good match for me.

    Even still, it’s maddening not to be able to continue my usual level of activity and to see my calf muscle shrink. I’m exercising as much as I’m allowed to (I can go to the gym if I wear the boot and can do some strengthening exercises without the boot on). But I have to balance letting the ankle heal with my desire to get back to normal. In other words, much of the process is a waiting game.

    Awakening Final cover-sWaiting is also a huge part of any author’s career. Take the Tankborn Trilogy. After the long process of writing the first book, Tankborn, I had to wait to hear back from agents. Once I had representation, I had to wait through the process of marketing the book to publishers. Once the book sold to Tu Books, I had to go through the complex process of the rewrite, then wait to see the gorgeous cover art, then wait again until the first book was released in September 2011.

    The decision to go to the second and third books of the trilogy took some time, then more writing, more editing, more waiting for release dates. Awakening came out in April 2013, and I have to wait until spring 2014 for Rebellion, the final book of the trilogy.

    Full CoverSame deal with the Janelle Watkins mystery series that starts with the book Clean Burn. After all the waiting, it’s hard to believe that it’s going to be released in the US in less than a month. Back when Exhibit A first gave it the thumbs up was nearly a year ago. Which is kind of blisteringly fast from first offer to release. But it doesn’t seem that way when you’re dying to see the book on the shelves.

    But just like I can’t make that ankle heal any faster, no matter how much I will that bone to knit, I can’t make the cycle of book to shelf happen any quicker. Writing and publishing is a long game, whether it’s via the traditional path that the Tankborn Trilogy and Janelle Watkins mysteries have followed or the indie-pubbed trail that my other books have traveled. And just as I can support my healing by eating right and exercising properly, I can support my writing career by writing the best books I can, polish them in as many rewrites as necessary, and do my best to get the word out so those books land in the hands of as many readers as possible.

  • Gol! How I met my goals when I thought I hadn’t set any

    Goal KittenThis week, YA Highway’s Road Trip Wednesday asks, where are you on your reading and writing goals? I have blogged before about how I don’t like setting goals and making resolutions. They kind of stress me out and bring up all kinds of fears that I won’t be able to achieve them so why should I set them in the first place? (Imagine me saying that last part really fast and in a high voice).

    Yeah, pretty negative. And what’s kind of silly about this is that I actually do make goals all the time (I never would have finished writing a single book if I hadn’t). I just don’t tend to write my goals down on a piece of paper or keep track of them in a file. I probably should. I bet I’d be far more organized and it would be clearer when I’ve met a goal.

    So, let me look back and come up with my first quarter goals in a retroactive way. First, I wanted to complete the edits on my first mystery novel, Clean Burn, which is coming out in September 2013 from Exhibit A. I had to wait for my editor’s notes, but he’d assured me they would be fairly simple. After I got his notes, I was able to incorporate those changes over the course of two weekends, so I’ve kicked that imaginary soccer ball into the net and the fans are screaming, Gol!

    Second, I wanted to complete by a certain date a rough draft of my current WIP, Revolution, the third and last book of the Tankborn trilogy from Tu Books. I’m being cagey about the specific date, because I like to keep that sort of thing to myself. I’m on target with that. Assuming I meet that goal as I expect to, I’ll have a few days to set the book aside, have some fun without having to think about the story, then get back to Revolution so I can get the rewrite done by the deadline. Haven’t quite reached the goal of finishing the rough draft since the date hasn’t arrived yet, but it’s within reach.

    ARe Sweet Dream LoverThird, I wanted to get going on my marketing and discoverability for my indie published romance novels. I’m meeting that goal with my new author “support group.” After a writer’s conference last October, a team of us had agreed in principle that we would work together to learn more about social networking. Our ultimate goal is to improve reader awareness of our books and therefore improve our sales. We had a fantabulous get-together last weekend (which I blogged about here). We’re still working out the details, of course, but there will be some exciting ventures coming out of our collaboration (new goals!).

    I’ve also wanted to get my website updated, which my hubby has helped me with (okay, he does all the work, but he does ask the occasional question that I have to answer). It’s still got some work to be done (I have to set up sites devoted to my romance and mystery sides), but you can check it out here.

    So I’m doing pretty well on the goal front. I have completed or am close to completing most of what I set out to do this quarter. I’ve got a bunch of new things on my list, but that means I’m moving forward and challenging myself. Isn’t that great?

    So how about you? Are you meeting your goals? Are you happy with how things are turning out?

  • The Trouble With Trilogies

    Back in my romance writing days, I didn’t write trilogies.  The love stories I wrote were one-offs. Although half of my Harlequin books (Counting on a Cowboy, A Father’s Sacrifice, His Baby to Love, The Three-Way Miracle, and Her Baby’s Hero) were all set in the same small town of Hart Valley and had some overlapping characters, there weren’t any connections between the stories. There were two books I did for Harlequin (Their Second-Chance Child and The Family He Wanted) that were part of the Fostering Family mini-series, where the second book picked up where the first left off. Characters from the first book were mentioned in the second, but the main story revolved around a new hero and heroine.

    Then along came Tankborn. When I first wrote Tankborn, I had a hazy idea of possibly writing a trilogy. Then when I signed with my agents and we were getting the manuscript ready for submission, they suggested I write up short blurbs for a second and third book. When we sold to Lee and Low/Tu Books, the original contract was only for the one book, but we later sold them two other books to complete the trilogy.

    So my foray into writing my first real trilogy actually commenced with the second Tankborn book. With book one, I was blissfully ignorant of how anything I wrote might have a ripple effect into books two and three. Although I’d still had that hazy idea of writing two more books, I completed Tankborn and saw it into print before I ever wrote word one of the second book, Awakening.

    And that was when the hand-shackles went on. From the moment I started Awakening, I had to constantly keep in mind the Tankborn universe. The book was already printed, many, many people had already read it, and while most readers probably wouldn’t notice if some little detail wasn’t consistent, someone somewhere would.

    So I certainly couldn’t change the planet my characters were on from Loka to somewhere else. I could not make the sky blue instead of green. There had to be two suns in the sky, not one. And seycats and droms had to have six legs, not four or eight. In other words, I couldn’t fudge or goof. The first book was already in print, there for anyone to refer to and point out my mistakes.

    Still, as I wrote Awakening, I thought it was pretty cool having the Tankborn universe already defined. I didn’t have to re-invent the wheel. If I couldn’t remember whether seycats had stripes or spots, or just how tall a genetically engineered drom was, I had the best reference in the world–the first book.

    So I finished Awakening feeling pretty good about things. My editor and I had a great round of developmental edits that strengthened all my characters and added some complexity to the plot. Then it was time for the copy editor.

    That’s when the oopsies started. For instance, Risa, a very minor character in Tankborn, is a prominent secondary character throughout Awakening. As I fleshed out her character in the second book, I gave her red hair mixed with gray. I didn’t bother to check in Tankborn to see if I’d mentioned what color hair Risa had. But the copy editor did check. And pointed out that in Tankborn, Risa is described as having dark hair. For continuity’s sake, Risa’s hair couldn’t be red.

    This may seem very minor (and it was for the most part). But I was a little sad at the necessity because Risa has a pet seycat (a wild feline indigenous to the planet Loka) and seycat coats are red (with black/grayish markings). I’d really liked the idea that Risa’s hair matched the seycat’s. That had to go away with the change of hair color, which required a bit more tweaking than a simple change from red to dark.

    The second blooper was an incorrect character name. There’s an important character who plays a very minor role in Tankborn, a slightly more important role in Awakening, and will play a major role in the third book of the trilogy, Revolution. I used the wrong name for her throughout Awakening. I hadn’t remembered that one of the last changes we made in Tankborn before it went to print was to change that character’s name. Again, it was a good catch on the part of the copy editor that saved us from using the wrong name and really confusing readers.

    Alas, there is an error/inconsistency that was my fault that sneaked its way into Tankborn. I only noticed it as I was working on Revolution. There’s a shrub on the planet Loka called a sticker bush. At least that’s what I was calling it all through Awakening, what I thought I’d called it in Tankborn. But it turns out that at some point, I decided to call the sticker bush a prickle bush instead. And I wasn’t even consistent at that, because while I call it a prickle bush twice in Tankborn, I call it a sticker bush once.

    So what to do? Prickle or sticker? I realized I liked sticker bush better and made an executive decision to call it that, inconsistency be damned.

    Live and learn. Continuity in trilogies has proved to be a tricky business. I’ll have another chance to play around with this in my upcoming mystery series from Angry Robot/Exhibit A, which begins with Clean Burn. Since it’s not science fiction, it should be a piece of cake, right?

    Right.