Hi! No you’re in the right place even though this is
Veronica Scott signing in! I’m your new Word Whore and happy to be here…
Only the fact that my co-workers would not have understood kept me from squeeing up and down the day job’s
halls late last week when the Word Whores e mailed to tell me I was now one of them. I’ll be holding down the
Saturday slot, wrestling weekly with the knotty questions this group ponders. (On my personal blog I have a tendency to
talk about Titanic, Ancient Egypt,
vintage chandelier earrings, LEGOs, old
science fiction movies, gladiators, Mars rovers….in short, anything but writing
and so it’ll be fun to talk about the craft here.)
In addition to the day job, I write science fiction romance
and paranormal romance – two genres I also love reading, not-so-coincidentally.
More on that in a minute! I’ve been writing since I was a little kid...the library in our house was equally full of
science fiction books (Dad’s influence) and tomes on ancient history (I think Mom
wanted to be an archaeologist) so it’s no wonder I write novels that blend
aspects of the two. The first movie I ever remember seeing (other than “Bambi”,
long traumatic story there) was “Forbidden
Planet,” on television, with Leslie Nielsen in his serious heroic acting days.
So science fiction imprinted itself on me very young!
I have two grown daughters and a wonderful grandson - I’ve made
sure all three share my love of SF and ancient history. I am supervised by two
cats (not as fluffy as Jeffe Kennedy’s Jackson, but who is, I ask you?)….pictures
of them will no doubt appear here from time to time.
Priestess of the Nile was my first published work, in
January 2012 from Carina Press. I was still basking in the excitement when it
dawned on me that the 100th anniversary of the Titanic sinking was fast approaching. This was significant because
I also had a completed science fiction novel loosely based on the Titanic disaster, but set in the far
future on a spaceliner. There was no
time to submit it anywhere, not with the 2012 anniversary being only three
months away at the time.
And so I fell into self publishing, which is the Word Whores
topic for this week. I actually enjoyed the self publishing process. It was
nice to be in total control of my book, Wreck of the Nebula Dream, but also a bit scary. I worked with a
free lance editor – my first piece of advice is you must have an editor. You’ll never catch all the issues in your beloved
manuscript on your own. I commissioned a professionally done cover – my second piece of advice is you need a
kick ass cover (am I allowed to say kick ass here???Guess so LOL!).
I found it mildly stressful to be in charge of all the technical
aspects of getting the book properly formatted for the kindle and Nook, and
uploaded. (I’ve been told I still have some backward quotation marks in the ebooks –
sorry!) Getting formal reviews has been
something of a challenge since many book bloggers and reviewers don’t welcome
self published books. I think that’s the place I most wished I had a publisher
standing behind me, but there were tradeoffs involved with going independent
and I really wanted to tie in to that
100th anniversary and all the attention and interest in Titanic. (And the book was picked as a 2013 SFR
Galaxy Award winner, if I may sneak that fact in.)
I then took the next step in self publishing and had an
audio book released. Now that process
was all kinds of fun. I loved collaborating with the talented actor Michael Riffle
who narrated and produced the book for me. He embodied my hero so perfectly,
and portrayed the other characters with elan – it was a personal joy to hear
each new chapter as he finished recording. Next best thing to having the book
made into a movie! I’ve talked extensively about the audiobook process on my blog,
starting with a fun interview with Michael, so I won’t go into it here.
Will I self publish again? Most likely at some point. It was
overall a good experience. Let me hasten to add, I’m thrilled to have my
Ancient Egyptian paranormal romance series published by Carina Press, really enjoy
working with everyone there. (The next one is Warrior of the Nile, coming in
September 2013.) But I can definitely see myself going the self pub route again
under the right circumstances, as I did with Wreck of the Nebula Dream. Never say never!
Future posts will be shorter, I promise! Had to do double
duty today what with introducing myself AND addressing the weekly question….
Any questions for the newest Whore?
