I've had more than one person ask me why I chose to publish with Desert Breeze Publishing. Killing Time was the first book I pitched to them. It wasn't written for the market. An agent told me that it might be hard to sell because the first few chapters were set in a jail. I actually enjoy jail television shows such as Lockup and Cops, so I begged to differ.
When I read Michelle Sutton's Danger at the Door and fell in love with the book, I e-mailed her and we became friends. She suggested that I pitch to Desert Breeze because they don't have a strict guidelines as the big publishers on what they take. Her comments was that they like strong writing and a good story. I sent a proposal and was elated when thirty days later, they said they wanted to publish it.Desert Breeze is an ebook publisher, but they're different than most. First of all, they don't publish erotica. I'd feel comfortable with a child reading their website. Some of their books are steamier than others and each book is placed in a category that ranges from sweet to intense. Of course, the intense books are much steamier than the sweet books I write, but even then wouldn't be classified as erotica.
Another unusual aspect of Desert Breeze is that they allow the author to have a say-so in the book cover design. Upon signing the contract, the author fills out a questionnaire as to what they'd like to see on the cover. I wasn't happy with the first cover they designed for Killing Time and they worked we me until they'd designed a cover I was proud to call my own.
I liked the Desert Breeze experience so much that I sent them a second book, Queen of Hearts. It was my first historical, a WWII era romantic suspense that I wrote during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month.) Queen of Hearts has been out since April and was their bestseller for its debut month.
No comments:
Post a Comment