I wrote, edited, and self-publishing my first
six novels without much consideration to submitting them to a publisher. And I may never know if this was a sound
idea, but it did allow me to create in a vacuum—deadlines were my own,
additions and deletions were at my whim, and word count generally fell where it
wanted. I would set goals and exceed them.
I always vow to take sabbaticals upon a book’s completion, but I rarely
follow through. Upon finishing my
longest novel yet, I set out to create something a little more, well,
manageable. I strived to write something
standard and commercial. There was no
switching of perspectives, and the supporting characters became just
that—support. In no more than four weeks
I had completed Heart Trouble, edited it, and then set about offering it to a
publisher. Crimson Romance liked my
query and asked for both a synopsis and manuscript, neither of which was hard
to submit. Thankfully they liked the
novel, and I am now on the verge of my first release through a real-life
publisher. It’s been an adjustment, of
course, but I am grateful to have had both an editor and a cover designer that
wasn’t me.
So here I am, putting the novel out there for
the rest of the world to see. I’ll be
available for the first time in a place that isn’t Amazon, although I will be
there as well. This deal includes much
more promotion than I could have ever accomplished alone, and will be
distributed through Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and the Crimson Romance webpage
as well. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll find
myself on a library shelf here and there.
I will include the relevant links as they become available. I am already excited to share the
high-resolution cover image.
And now
for some background on the novel itself, Heart Trouble. My hero and heroine are only children, much
like myself. The hero, Brandt, lives at
home with his parents; the heroine, Marissa, has never met her father and had
to move away from her mother in order to find work. I stuck with the time-tested and familiar
cowboy theme in this novel, although I moved it closer to home—I invented a
fictional region of Kentucky in order to play fast and loose with the
settings. The town wound up not being as
large a character—we mainly stick to the ranch, a typical-enough rural setting. Like I’ve said before, I’m far more
comfortable with rural backdrops. The
novel is a shade under 62,000 words, shorter than all of my previous novels
save for Windswept. I think of it as an
efficient story—I tried to focus on the two main characters and allow the story
to take place strictly through their eyes.
I’ll
keep you up-to-date as things progress—and thanks, once again, to everyone for
their support.
