A Scary and Exciting Time

Patricia Rosemoor

This is both a scary and an exciting time to be an author. In little more than a year, publishing has been turned on its head. Authors can now be their own publishers with little to no investment, and that has brought a huge change as to how traditional houses -- or legacy houses as they are now called -- and how agents are reinventing themselves. As someone who has lasted in the industry for a squeak away from thirty years, I have reinvented myself multiple times. And now, with all the opportunities available to authors, I am keeping my fingers in every pie I can.

I’m really happy to be able to make my backlist available to readers, who might not have caught those stories the first time around. I can't tell you how many times I've had readers ask me how to get titles they missed. I have a large backlist both of my Patricia Rosemoor titles, but also novels written with a co-author as Lynn Patrick, Jeanne Rose and Roslynn Griffith. Samhain is publishing most of the Lynn Patrick backlist, and Lynn Patrick is once more appearing at Harlequin for their new Heartwarming line. Backlist Jeanne Rose titles are available again at Amazon, BN and Smashwords.

My first novel was a young adult romance. It won the 1983 Golden Heart for Best Young Adult Romance. Unfortunately, I wasn’t at the RWA National Conference that year. A chapter mate called me to tell me I'd won and that the editor of Silhouette Young Love was saying that I was her new author. I had submitted the book to her and had done a rewrite to lengthen it, but the editor hadn’t called or written to say she wanted the book. So I waited for the call. And waited. And waited. And then gave up.

Three weeks after the conference, the editor finally called and asked if she’d made me an offer. I said no. She said she wanted to buy the book and hoped that I would accept her offer...because she’d already put it in production. A CHANGE OF HEART (by “RoseAnne McKenna”) was the only young adult book I ever wrote. Books that followed were romantic comedies, long contemporary romances, paranormal romances, paranormal historical romances. I was determined to continue to be published, no matter the changing market. As I said, I keep reinventing myself.

My favorite subgenre, the type of novel that composes more than half of my backlist, is romantic suspense. I’ve written 93 published novels, sold over seven million copies worldwide. Fifty-three of those novels were Harlequin Intrigues. RT BookReviews has honored me with two awards for Best Intrigue and two Career Achievement Awards recognizing my career as a romantic suspense author.

Currently, I am writing for Entangled Publishing's Dead Sexy line. I had a little fun writing Christmas romantic mysteries -- HOLIDAY IN CRIMSON and NIGHTMARE IN CRIMSON -- by killing Santa Claus. Twice.

Holiday in Crimson

See Me in Your Dreams

SKIN

So far, I’ve gone indie with several of my Patricia Rosemoor backlist titles, including SEE ME IN YOUR DREAMS, TELL ME NO LIES and TOUCH ME IN THE DARK, the first three novels in my bestselling series, The McKenna Legacy. (The most requested books by my new readers.) And I’ve written one original indie romantic thriller, SKIN.

Pushed to the Limit

HAUNTED

Drop Dead Gorgeous

We Ink Jockeys are all traditionally published authors who also are producing indie work, whether backlist or original titles. We've banded together, hoping to entertain you endlessly!

Watch this space for our exciting Book Derby on Wednesday and Thursday, December 5-6. We'll offer readers Kindle books ON SALE at 99¢ ... and some will even be FREE! So come back and scoop up the bargains.

Paula Graves, Living Vicariously

I've always wanted to be interesting, but apparently I lack the drive or the internal resources for it.  I'm ruthlessly average, a bit on the nerdy side, and my life is so ordinary it even puts me to sleep.

So how on earth did I come to write romantic thrillers for a living?

I figure, the next best thing to doing something exciting is writing about it. I'm too afraid of heights to stand on a chair, but that doesn't keep my heroines from dangling thirty feet from a truss bridge in a hallucinatory state.  Fire scares the heck out of me, but I've been known to stick a hero in a burning house trying to open a nailed-shut trap door to save the heroine.

When I was a kid, my play time was all about pretending to be something I wasn't.  I guess writing books is the grown-up equivalent to playing pretend for me.

I've always thought of writing as a fun sort of therapy, in which I deal with my neuroses by living them out on page and winning. I get thrills through my characters, who get to do the interesting, exciting, and important things that I'll probably never get the chance to do.  Like take on a Mexican drug lord and fall in love with a smokin' hot cowboy.

My December story, "Wyatt" is part of a Harlequin Intrigue Christmas anthology called THREE COWBOYS.  My co-conspirators, Julie Miller and Dana Marton, wrote the first two stories, and mine wraps up the overarching mystery.  It's a tale about three brothers, estranged by time and circumstance, who join forces when the little sister they never knew existed is kidnapped by a ruthless drug cartel just a few days before Christmas.  There's plenty of danger and thrills, but there's also a heart-warming story about a family finding its way back together at a time of year when family and forgiveness take center stage.

 

I also have three indie e-books available now, books I chose to publish myself in order to help them find an audience.  Talk about living vicariously—one of them actually features a former President's daughter seeking help and protection from the former Secret Service agent who once protected her.  Check them out on my website:

 

CODE NAME: WILLOW

 

PLAYING DEAD IN DIXIE

 

MURDER ON LOVERS' LANE

 

 

So here's my question for you.  Do you read books to meet interesting people?

 

Don't forget to watch for our upcoming Book Derby!  Lots of free and 99¢ books up for grabs! Don't miss it!