RWA: The Rest of the Story
So, I had an epic RWA conference. But I had to sit on parts of the epic until it was okay for me to spill it. Some people (a lot of them…) who were at RWA know this already.
On the first official day, when registration was opened up, I was standing down by the booth with my massive bag of books, in a circle of several authors and first time conference attendees. And my phone, which I had in my name badge, buzzed. It didn’t ring because that part of the hotel had a little dead zone for my phone (this, FYI, was sort of the story of conference for me. No matter how close I kept my phone, I kept missing important phone calls.)
Anyway, I dashed to the end of the hall to check my voice mail. It was from my agent Helen Breitwieser.
She was calling to tell me that we had had sold two books and a linked novella to Berkley! It’s a series, set in Silver Creek, Oregon, a town I made up that is populated by sexy cowboys. (I know, handy that, right?) The books will be out next Summer, more details to come!
Now, the fact that I was writing cowboy books in my spare time (otherwise known as Super Sekrit Projekt and Baby Super Sekrit Projekt) is basically the world’s worst kept secret thanks to my occasional posting of shirtless men in tight jeans and Stetsons. You. Are. Welcome.
I have so much to say about the process of writing the book, the process of selling it, but I think I’ll save it for another post because I’m just too excited to get to share this right now.
But I’ll tell you a little about the books. They are spicy small town romances injected with a hefty dose of humor. And…shirtless guys in tight jeans and Stetsons. (yeah, you’re welcome)
And I have to give a big thank you to my agent, Helen, who believed in the series concept from the moment I pitched them to her clumsily over an early breakfast at RWA in New York. (This story began at conference too, which I think makes it all the better.)
I owe a big thank you to Katherine Pelz at Berkley who read the book and liked it.
I also owe a big thanks to Lisa Hendrix for pushing me to write a longer book in the first place, even though I started out dragging my heels and kicking and screaming.
I’m still writing for Presents, so you will still have angsty alpha males from me. You’ll just also have cowboy alpha males. 🙂
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Whoop! Go you. How wonderful. Really chuffed for you and can’t wait to hear more about it 🙂
Yayyyy! Also…NEW YORK RWA?! That’s like…over a year ago. How did you not die from Sooper Sekrit-itis?! Major congrats, officially. 😀
How awesome for you! And us!
YEAH! Maisey,
Congratulations. You have such a funny voice on your blog and tweets, I can see your style fitting right into a cowboy book with some humour. But what really amazes me? You finished a longer book while still writing for Presents. Now THAT’s discipline.
HUGELY happy for your Maisey and can’t wait to read them all!!
SO thrilled for you! Congrats…now we all have a Maisey cowboy to look forward to 🙂
Michelle! Thank you!
Jess, well, that’s when I got my agent and when we started work on the book. In the meantime…this was a sale she worked for, let me tell you!
Aww…thanks, Marcie!
Anne, it was such a learning experience for me. I had to learn a new way to work so that I could keep up the work on my Presents and get work done on the cowboys, but once I settled into a routine I found it okay. Now that I have the books contracted though, I don’t plan on doing them in between the Presents. I like the work on projects steadily until they’re done, so that’s my plan!
Rach, thank you, my dear. You rock!
Victoria, my special sort of cowboy…I hope you all like them!