It Takes a Village by Jenny Gardiner

While the phrase "it takes a village" always sounds a little cliche, it really does hold true for the career of most writers. It's the rare author who launches from the starting gate into the stratosphere without many people behind her (or him) helping in so many ways.

It's hard to even recount some of the many, many people who have helped me to get to where I am at this point in my career. Certainly first and foremost to thank is my husband, whose constant support has bolstered me through the ups and downs I've experienced as a writer. And I'm most appreciative of his reliable income: when mine was most unreliable, I was still able to persist in my efforts to help sustain us financially with my income as an author. Without him I could not have continued to try to plug away at a career as an author. And my kids, who have ridden the highs and lows alongside me as well and been my biggest cheerleaders. That goes for so very many family members who have been there for me on the sidelines (starting with my mom, who bought me my first laptop so I could write books while waiting for my kids at various after school practices and while on the road for soccer matches).

Many fellow authors loom large for me: those who have been in the trenches alongside me and shared in the frustrations and successes---and there have been many of both. These include writers I've befriended and become good friends with online, some from writing groups, others I've met at conferences. And of course the lovely ladies of the Girlfriends Book Club---an amazing group and super supportive. Many of my writer friends are women and it's a unique sisterhood we all have forged for ourselves in this business that has often been inherently more challenging for women than men. But there are a lot of guys who write whose input and support has been invaluable as well.

And there are authors who were way ahead of me in the business and were kind enough to reach a hand down to help pull me up: the lovely and hilarious Meg Cabot, who kindly blurbed my first novel for me; Jane Porter as well for that matter. And a host of author friends who kindly took the time to read and blurb my books also, which is asking a lot when they have their own books to write and edit: Kristy Kiernan, Eileen Cook (who's got the book of the spring launching soon!), Lauren Baratz-Logsted, Suzanne MacPherson, Bev Katz Rosenbaum, Wade Rouse (who also has a much buzzed-about book coming out soon), Beth Hoffman, Sarah Pekkanen, Ad Hudler.

And some top-tier authors who are all-around good people: the late Pat Conroy, such a lovely, humble and exceedingly talented writer, and Jamie Ford, so funny and so poignant, both come to mind.

Along the way I've had some terrific editors, who help so much to polish a book to its full luster: Chris Keeslar, Emily Westlake, both in the land of traditional publishing, and now folks like Anne Victory and Nikki Busch, Jen Pooley (who will honestly tell you when you need to know when to fold 'em), and Bev Katz Rosenbaum. I couldn't be where I am without thanking Kim Killion, who creates excellent covers for my books. And my assistant Joanne Levy, who truly has the patience of a saint when it comes to disorganized me.

And I can't forget my excellent agent Holly Root who without doubt has the patience of Job with me...and who will one day get The Book from me. It's fermenting in my brain as I write this. And a shout-out to agent Jeff Kleinman, who gave me lots of early encouragement when I really needed it.

And last but of course far from least, loyal and lovely readers: without whom I'd never have gotten past my first novel---and wow, did readers help to bolster my confidence when I launched my first novel! I'd be an awfully lonely writer without supportive readers, who send the most wonderful emails and post awesome reviews just because they're really nice people, and who continue to seek out books I've written and pop in to say hi when they're on Facebook (and, um, maybe even send me some adorable panda pictures, which I love to obsess over): I can't say enough about how grateful I am to you all, who have stuck with me over the years and given me the impetus to keep on keeping on in this crazy business, because I know there are people out there who enjoy reading the books I write. For that I can't say thank you enough!

Geeze, I didn't mean to get all Academy Award on you here--not like I've been handed a gold statue and been asked for my acceptance speech or anything! But I think it is so important to thank everyone who has contributed to my getting here: I think more so in publishing than in  most traditional jobs, an author stands on many, many strong shoulders to get to where they've gotten, and to you all I say thank you, thank you, thank you! (and if I forgot to mention you, many mea culpas for that failure!).

So great news! I just released Throne for a Loop, book six in my It's Reigning Men series! It's available here: iBooks, Kindle, Kobo, GooglePlay, Nook

And what do you think of the cover for book 7? I love it! It's available for pre-order, coming out May 24! You can get it here: iBooks, Kindle, Kobo, GooglePlay

Oh and for a limited time I've got an awesome free book for you if you sign up for my newsletter: Something in the Heir, book 1 of the It's Reigning Men series! Sign up here http://eepurl.com/baaewn and you'll be first to hear about deals and giveaways.

 

   

           

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So You Say You Want to Publish Your Own Book… by Jenny Gardiner

It's been nearing two years now since I decided to self-publish a novel. Back then it was in the early days of indie publishing, and I made the decision based on instinct, purely because I'd gotten a Kindle for my birthday that previous December and was so hooked on the convenience of it, the ability to acquire new books within a minute's time, the elimination of tons and tons of paper waste that was endemic with the publishing industry, etc. I just knew if I loved this cool, new (and then overpriced) gadget, then others would too. And I knew once the price came down on it lots of people would be on board. I'd decided the time was upon us when I heard that Apple would be launching this new product called an iPad soon. That was the magic bullet to bring the price down on e-readers so that people would buy them.

It was slow-going in the early days. That first year I hardly sold any books. Hardly anyone owned e-readers. Plus it was hard to determine the proper pricing--it made sense for an e-book to be cheaper than a book that is printed, but how much cheaper? Hard to know. And it seemed that those who owned Kindles were looking for free content. Maybe to save money after shelling out $350 for a Kindle? hehehe

Have I learned a lot in the past two years? Oh, if only you knew…

There was a time when I wanted to stay parked firmly in the camp of publishing with New York houses. That's the way it was supposed to be. But something happened along the way: times changed. New York houses changed (well, actually more like they failed to adapt, which led to their becoming much more irrelevant). It went from a reasonable proposition to an unrealistic one. More and more houses were putting all the demands on authors with little-to-no risk on their part. If a book didn't sell gangbusters, it was automatically because the author somehow failed. Which we all knew was baloney. But it was easiest to blame the most vulnerable in the trail: the writers. Advances became so small as to be almost insulting: once upon a time an advance would enable an author to write from book to book without quite starving to death. But advances were becoming so small that it was the equivalent of working a minimum wage job for about a week: clearly not enough to sustain someone. Authors were busily working their tails off, building a healthy mountain of debt and not ever seeing much money for their efforts (while readers falsely believed writers were living it up like the Kardashians!).

But then Amazon decided to offer authors what no one else had truly done: respect. In the form of a legitimate level of royalty payment. Enough to help pay for groceries! Imagine! Granted, it was part of their multi-pronged attack against the industry-slash-attempt-to-curry-favor-with-a-susceptible-population. But hey, I admit, I was completely vulnerable! Throw the possibility of actual wage-earning my way and I'll foam at the mouth! I have no pride!

But what I hadn't expected that I love about publishing myself is that I have control over my career again. No longer am I at the mercy of vagaries over which I have no control. No editors who leave in the middle of a book, leaving you essentially unrepresented for your book's publication and floundering in no-man's land. No houses who lose interest in the novel and neglect to promote it. No IOUs on royalties stuck in this mysterious accounting category known as "reserves", which means you'll never see a penny of it. Basically no one to blame but me if it doesn't do well. But now I have an artist's palette of options to try to fix that if it doesn't sell: change the cover. Change the descriptive jacket copy. Try various promotions both within Amazon and without. If the book doesn't sell, it's not dead in the water as it once was with a New York house. It just calls for some refining. Tweaking. This was a new concept: rather than sit passively by while my home was engulfed in weeds, with indie publishing I was able to take proactive measures to spruce up the curb appeal and ensure that people were interested. This is a great gift that Amazon has given authors. And one that benefits readers. For far too long authors were shut down with terrific books simply because they didn't fit within the narrowly prescripted terms of their genres and those of bricks-and-mortar stores: i.e. if it couldn't be easily categorized on a shelf, it wasn't going to find a home. But now if you write a book that transcends genre descriptions, one that might be part suspense, part women's fiction, and part sports narrative, well guess what? Somewhere on Amazon, you'll find your readership. Chick lit, once considered the graveyard for all eternity for writers, has returned with indie publishing: we knew the readers existed. It's just that publishing houses refused to take a chance to publish that type of novel after they'd killed the genre. It's a whole new world in publishing, and I'm so happy to be in the frontier of it, taking charge, owning my career again.

Over the past two years I've become a scholar of sorts, learning the ins and outs of independent publishing, trying to discern what works and what doesn't. There's a lot of trial and error, and there isn't always a simple answer. Plus it's true, rather than devote all of my time to writing, I'm having to divide it in order to focus also on trying to succeed in this New Publishing World Order. But hell, even if publishing through "legacy" New York publishers I was spending much of my time with marketing and publicity, sucking away time I'd otherwise spent creating worlds as a writer. At least now I'm doing it while earning an actual living, which is a good thing, if nothing else because it enables me to continue to be a writer. And that's a good thing.

So if you're interested in checking out my indie-published books, here they are!













and others I have with other publishing houses:





and coming very soon:




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