Entries Tagged 'Connie Briscoe Presents' ↓

Cheryl Robinson tells us how she went from self-publishing her first two novels to landing book deals with New York publishing houses. She also discusses why she decided to try virtual book touring for her latest title, Sweet Georgia Brown.

Connie Briscoe: You started out as a self-published author. Why was that? Did you try to find an agent or traditional publisher first? Tell us about those early years.

Cheryl Robinson: It took years before I decided to put my first novel to paper. I made a conscious decision when I started writing that I would self-publish because I had heard the horror stories on finding an agent or publishing company. I had also tried in the past to obtain an agent and I did receive my fair share of rejection letters, which discouraged me from pursuing my passion for several years.

So when I did finally sat down in front of my computer and decided to write my first novel, which was Memories of Yesterday, my thought process was that I would publish my first novel myself, and I felt very confident that I would gain the attention of publishers from that point.

CB: How did you finally land a literary agent?

Cheryl Robinson: I self-published Memories of Yesterday and sent it off to Earl Cox in New York who owned a small press and also provided consulting for authors. I was hoping that with his assistance I could take my novel to the next level. He wasn’t interested in my first book so the following year I self-published another novel, When I Get Free. I went all out with my promotional material–with a full-color press kit folder, a catchy title and a nice tagline.

I went back to Earl Cox and this time he was very interested. He received my novel on a day when he was flying to Los Angeles to meet with a literary agent about another one of his clients and he took my book with him, read it, and loved it. He passed my book on to the agent who also loved it. Within 30 days from that point, I had a literary agent.

CB: How is it different working with an agent?

Cheryl Robinson: The agent is the go between you and the publisher. Even if you have been working with the same editor for a while, the proper protocol is to have your agent pitch your next book deal and of course negotiate the contract. The right agent can make or break your career, I believe. They are very important and they must believe in you as a writer and in your work in order to work out the best possible deal for you.

CB: You are currently on a virtual book tour. Is this your first one and how is it going?

Cheryl Robinson: It is my first one and I am having a lot of fun.

CB: Why did you decide to go on a virtual book tour?

Cheryl Robinson: I needed to save money. I was spending thousands of dollars on marketing my novels, and travel was an enormous expense for me. I also needed to save time and find a smarter way to market my titles. For me, I think the virtual book tour is the best way for now.

CB: So you liked the idea of going on a book tour without ever having to leave home. When and where do you write?

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Connie Briscoe Presents

After self-publishing her first two novels, author Cheryl Robinson, whose latest work is Sweet Georgia Brown, landed book deals with New American Library and HarperCollins. This week, Cheryl tells us how she finally landed a literary agent and a New York publisher.

Writing Tips

Also this week, I’ll list the biggest mistakes that aspiring and new authors make and suggest how to correct them.

Connie Briscoe Presents–
Whether you call them virtual book tours or blog tours or something else, there’s no doubt they’re having a big impact on the book selling market and that the impact will likely continue to grow in the future.

This week I talk to Cheryl Malandrinos, who runs the Pump Up Your Book Promotion blog tours for authors along with her partner Dorothy Thompson. Malandrinos’ clients have included award-winning science fiction authors, screenwriters, and young adult and romance authors among others. She will tell us all about virtual book tours and how they work.

Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant met as plus-size models competing for the same modeling gigs, and now they’re the award-winning authors of six novels–all written together. Here the two tell us how they work so well together and so much more.

Connie Briscoe: When was your first novel published and how many have you written?

DeBerry and Grant: We’ve written six novels all together. Gotta Keep on Tryin’, which is the sequel to Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made, is just out. And right before we left on book tour we finished our sixth book. What Doesn’t Kill You will be out in January ‘09.

The very first novel we wrote together was called Exposures. We wrote it under the name Marie Joyce–a combination of both our names–Donna Marie and Virginia Joyce. It was published as a Warner paperback original in 1990.

The book is somewhat different from our others. It is centered in the fashion business, which is where we met. It is a romance, which is not what we currently write, and the characters are white. The book was an experiment to see if we could write together and get our work published. Despite the obvious differences from our more well-known titles, the themes of friendship, family and dealing with the consequences of our choices were present even back then.

CB: That’s certainly an unusual beginning. Why did you decide to write a novel together in the first place?

DeBerry and Grant: After working on a newsletter and a magazine together, we realized we had a unique ability to work together. Neither of us remember whose idea it was to try writing a novel, but we found it creatively fulfilling and fun too–who can beat that? Somehow the sum of our talents makes for a greater whole. Our backgrounds and perspectives are enough alike to provide common ground but different enough to give us the basis for conflict in our stories. And even after all these years we still have a great time working together.

CB: Who comes up with the story ideas or themes for the novels?

DeBerry and Grant: We both do. We talk all the time about what’s in the news, situations we’ve encountered, pieces of our pasts. When we’re plotting a novel all of that goes in the pot and we spend a lot of time “what if-ing,” until we have cooked up a story.

CB: How do you come up with your characters?

DeBerry and Grant: They are often composites of physical and emotional characteristics we have borrowed from a variety of sources in both of our lives. We do work to make them fully rounded and unique, so that they remind readers of people they know or even themselves. We give our characters complete biographies, often with details that don’t make it into the story, but it’s a way for us to know why they behave the way they do and it allows us to stay true to them.

CB: How do you pull it all together? Do you each take a turn writing chapters or do you each pick your characters and write for those characters?

DeBerry and Grant: It’s really a completely collaborative process. We have spoken to other teams and it seems nobody does it the way we do. We work side by side–literally–in front of the computer. One of us may start a sentence that the other finishes. The keyboard passes back and forth between us. The words are all fair game, so much so that it’s nearly impossible to remember who wrote what by the time we’re done.

Our aim is to have one voice telling the story. If readers can feel the shift between us, it takes them out of the storytelling and we never want to do that. We don’t know why it works, but at this point we don’t question it. It’s a great gift and we’re grateful for it.

CB: It really is a special gift. I’m not sure I could ever pull it off. How much do you draw from your real lives for your novels?

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Connie Briscoe Presents–
This week, double the pleasure, double the fun with Essence bestselling authors Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant. Best friends for 25 years, this writing duo has penned five novels together. Their latest, Gotta Keep On Tryin’, was released just last month, and DeBerry and Grant took the time out from a very busy tour schedule to talk to us about a whole bunch of stuff, from how they write together to what they like to do in their free time.

Writing Tips
Sweet book trailer by an up-and-coming author. Creative, provocative, brief! Be prepared to take notes.

And more…

Author Lolita Files–that’s her real name–has five dogs and one bird. And she loves fried chicken, shoes and the internet. But don’t send her an IM. She can’t stand that. You’ll have much better luck getting a response if you send her a message through e-mail.

Connie Briscoe: How many books have you had published?

Lolita Files: I have six novels, one novella, and three short stories. I’m currently working on my seventh novel.

CB: How do you come up with your story ideas?

Lolita Files: Sometimes the stories just come to me on their own. Other times, I’ll get a spark of an idea from something I read in the news, see on the street, or hear about in pop culture.

CB: This week on my blog I talked about where I write. When and where do you write best?

Lolita Files: Sitting in bed with my laptop–usually during the day and early evening–with the television on the in the background. With the exception of one book, I’ve written everything this way.

CB: Do you outline or write character sketches? If not, how do you organize your writing?

Lolita Files: Historically, I do not outline or write character sketches. I just sit in front of the laptop and wait for the first few words to come–this part can be torture–then I let the characters take over and lead the story.

CB: Those first pages are always the toughest. How much do you draw from your real life for your novels?

Lolita Files: Not as much as readers would think. I may layer in a particular interest I have–travel, pets, food cravings–but beyond minor details, I prefer creating worlds and characters that are unique to the specific story.

CB: How has the publishing market changed since you had your first book published?

Lolita Files: More books by authors of color are available on the market, which is a positive in one regard. Major publishers, however, have attempted to marginalize the types of books that are published by writers of color, focusing heavily on street fiction and erotica-based literature, seriously limiting exposure to the wide range of voices and genres that deserve to be heard.

CB: So true, unfortunately. What can we expect to see from you next?

Lolita Files: I’m doing a sequel to Tastes Like Chicken, which was the last book in the Misty/Reesy series. It ended with a few cliffhangers that I needed to tie up. The book is called Next Day Feathers.

CB: Your books always have such interesting titles. Tell us something about yourself that most of us don’t already know.

Lolita Files: I love snow. I was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, so I never had true winters while growing up. I now live in a place with lots of snow, bitter winds, and freezing temperatures in winter…and I love it!

(Visit Lolita Files at her blog on pop culture–The Lo Zone)

Connie Briscoe Presents–

This week, Essence bestselling author Lolita Files, author of titles such as sex.lies.murder.fame, Tastes Like Chicken, Child of God and others, will talk about how she writes and what she’s working on now.

Writing Tips

Where to write. In bed with your laptop? On the floor? Or at a desk? How to find the best spot for crafting your prose.

Bestselling author Anita Bunkley has written nine fiction books, two romance novels, three novellas, and one work of nonfiction. She was rejected 32 times before finding her first publisher and has gone on to write for Signet, HarperCollins, Kimani, Dafina and others. Bunkley also mentors aspiring authors.

Connie Briscoe: I read somewhere that you faced 32 rejections before your first novel was published. How did you find the strength to keep on trying?

Anita Bunkley: I loved my story! If you love what you write, the chances are good that others will love it, too. I believed in my material, so I just kept pushing ahead.

CB: How do you come up with your characters?

Anita Bunkley: I try to visualize the people who will be walking across the pages, and I work hard to make them so interesting that readers will believe they are real. I also tear pages out of magazines when I see an interesting face and use these as inspiration.

CB: That’s a great tip! Do you outline? If so, can you tell us how you go about it?

Anita Bunkley: Yes. I outline. I spend a good deal of time setting the parameters of the story. I nail down the central conflict, the main characters, the climax and the resolution. It always changes as I write the novel, but it serves as a road map to keep me from going too far away from the heart of my story–it is soooo easy to wander!

CB: I can’t help but laugh because I know how true that is. Do you write the first page first or last?

Anita Bunkley: I start at the beginning and write to the end. If a scene pops into my mind that I plan to use later, I might stop and write it but not often.

CB: How many times do you rewrite your novels?

Anita Bunkley: An outline and two drafts before my agent gets it. Then another pass after we’ve talked about it and then off to my editor. The editor may send it back for revisions then there is copyediting. So the novel gets four to five edits before it is printed.

CB: Do you feel pressure to write more frequent or more intense sex scenes in your novels these days?

Anita Bunkley: It is necessary to keep up with the market and the demands of the readers. Since I began writing seventeen years ago things have changed a lot. Sex in mainstream women’s fiction and romance has evolved, becoming more open and explicit. I strive to write sex scenes that are realistic expressions of the storyline and not sex for the sake of sex.

CB: Good points. How much do you draw from your real life for your novels?

Anita Bunkley: Very little. I do travel a lot and incorporate locations I have visited.

CB: Tell us something personal about yourself that most of your readers don’t know.

Anita Bunkley: I love to invent things and hold a US Patent and three Trademarks. My Read-EZ!Ô Reading pillow–seen on my website– www.anitabunkley.com–has become a very poplar item among serious readers.

(You can join Anita Bunkley for a live chat on February 19, 2008, at 8:00 CST. Register today at www.niapresentsanita.com/register.html)

Connie Briscoe Presents–

Anita Bunkley, author of nine fiction books, two romance novels, three novellas, and one work of nonfiction, is the perfect example of why you should never give up if you really want something. Faced with 32 rejections –yep, you read right–before landing her first publisher, Anita went on to write for Signet, HarperCollins, Kimani, Dafina and others. This week she talks about how she kept going during those dark days and what it’s like now that the light shines so sweetly for her.

Writing Tips

I’ll talk about how to find a literary agent–or at least how I did it.

Francis Ray has written 20 novels and contributed to a dozen anthologies. And she’s still going strong with another novel, Not Even If You Begged, breaking loose this week .

Connie Briscoe: When was your first novel published?

Francis Ray: My first novel published was Fallen Angel in 1992. The book was reissued as Someone to Love Me by St. Martin’s Press in December 2003.

CB: How many novels have you written and why do you think you’re so prolific?

Francis Ray: I have written 20 novels and contributed to 12 anthologies. Two more novels are scheduled. I started out writing romance novels. Writing more than one book a year was expected of the author in that genre so it became a goal that I have always set for myself. Even before a book is finished I’m thinking about the next novel.

CB: Why do you think romance and relationship novels are so popular?

Francis Ray: I think they’re popular because they reaffirm our hopes, desires and dreams that true love is possible. We want that one special person in our life who will be committed to love, honor and cherish us always.

CB: How much do you draw from your real life for your novels?

Francis Ray: My mainstream novels all have been based on real life situations. In The Turning Point (Trouble Don’t Last Always) it was my own brush with blindness and an article I read about Dr. Ben Carson almost being carjacked. Like the First Time came from the downturn in the economy with lay-offs and my daughter’s inability to get a job in her field. A tense situation at work developed into I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. My latest novel, Not Even If You Begged, is a result of the increased number of widows in my neighborhood.

CB: How many times do you rewrite your novels?

Francis Ray: I rewrite as I go. Before I start to write, I reread the last 4-5 pages. I correct scene, sequel, plot errors, get back into the characters. Although the goal is 5-7 pages on weeknights because I work, I might only write a couple of pages because I’m correcting pages already written. When I type “The End” I’m finished.

CB: Going back to reread the pages from the previous writing session sounds familiar. I do something similar.

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