Bad Boys, Acquisitions Angst & Good Vibrations

Before we get to my post proper, a bit of bonus fun. As the title would imply, there are 3 Daves in my first novel, Three Daves. but usually it's just one Dave who gets the spotlight in my promos. So it seemed only fair to finally let my bad boy, Dave #2, out to playay in a short character interview over at Dawn's Reading Nook. If you have a few minutes, I'd love it if you'd stop by.

And now on to my contribution to this month's Insecure Writer's Support Group, brainchild of the one and clonely Alex J. Cavannaugh. Raise your hand if you've ever queried an agent or publisher. Hmm, quite a lot of you. Okay, raise your hand if you intend to query an agent or publisher at any point in the future. Goodness, that's nearly everyone. All right, last one -- raise your hand if you think querying an agent or a publisher is the least scary thing you've ever done in your life.

Anyone? Anyone?

I'm sure there's no need for me to list off the many reasons why sending our lovingly crafted stories out into the world to be judged is a frightening prospect. We all understand that this is a highly subjective biz, but rejection friggin' hurts no matter how gently it's worded.

Like I said a few months ago, sometimes it's the fear of the unknown that most feeds our insecurity. What do acquisitions editors love to see? What turns them off of a query? What makes them want to read more? I'm sure the answers vary from editor to editor, but to help scrape off just little bit of the acquisitions unknown, I've asked CK Wagner, an acquisitions editor at Omnific Publishing, if she'll take questions from my peanut gallery (that's you guys)---and she said yes! 

So she's all yours, kiddies. In the comments below, fire away with anything you've ever wanted to ask an acquisitions editor, and I'll have CK back later this month to answer your questions. (I'll take questions through Sunday & then will pass them on to her.)

Before you go, would you like to hear an acquisitions angst story with a happy ending? Yes? Well, at the beginning of this year I faced my fears head on and sent out a few query letters for my funny/naughty office romance, tentatively titled Vibrizzio. After a couple of agents passed on my query, I revised the letter and sent directly to a couple of small publishers along with a few more agents...small publishers seem to be my comfort zone and are a nice fit for my low patience threshold...both publishers requested fulls and Swoon Romance followed up quickly with an offer!

Swoon Romance is young, fresh and innovative and has a great catalog of books. So I was giddy when owner Georgia McBride told me she'd read my manuscript in one sitting, laughed out loud many times, and loved it. I signed an author agreement with them in the midst of AtoZ. So...yay.

You can bet I'll be sharing more about the story here, but for now you can check out a short summary at the Pinterest board I created for the WIP: The Movie blogfest. Urm, you're going to need to read that in order to understand the joke below that was made on annoucement day by my funny new Swoon sister, A.J. Matthews: 

Alrighty, what've you got for CK?