The Thrill Begins

CJ Lyons, ITW Debut Author of LIFELINES (March 4, Berkley), has just announced that its sequel, CATALYST, has also been purchased by Berkley.The medical thriller is tentatively scheduled for January, 2009.The plot of CATALYST features a medical student who starts to investigate unexplained patient deaths when she begins to experience the same mysterious symptoms that killed them.Look for CJ’s debut novel LIFELINES in March, and read more about it at her website.

GREAT NEWS! Blackstone Audio has secured the unabridged retail and library audio rights (including digital audio) for Jordan Dane’s NO ONE HEARD HER SCREAM (Avon release April 2008) and NO ONE LEFT TO TELL (Avon release May 2008) for the U.S. and Canada.

One question remains – If no one can hear her scream and there is no one left to tell, why would anyone need audio rights?

By Karen Dionne

January 8, 2007 might not seem like a particularly memorable date to most people, but it will always be a red-letter day for me. That’s the day my thriller about an environmental disaster in Antarctica sold to Berkley. Think Jurassic Park on ice — a solar energy company melting icebergs into drinking water while environmental extremists plot to stop them — neither realizing that the water is contaminated with an unknown, deadly disease. Read the rest of this entry »

By Jordan Dane

I sacrificed a body part to write my debut novel – No One Heard Her Scream. Now that’s commitment. I suspect there are more than a few aspiring authors out there who by now are looking down at their own bodies and wondering what they could do without. Anything for the cause—but let me explain.

While recovering from major surgery, I wrote No One Heard Her Scream in six weeks during a medical leave from my day job. The best remedy for the body is to fill it with passion and I did that. I kept insane hours and my body pumped full of adrenaline instead of pain meds. I wrote and edited until the day prior to my return to work. Since the start of my journey toward publication in 2003, I had completed my fourth manuscript (my second suspense plot). Read the rest of this entry »

by CJ Lyons

Twice a Virgin!

Thought that would get everyone’s attention!

Ask any published author and they can tell you about their first time…first time getting The Call, that is.

They will remember exactly where they were, what the weather was like, who was there. They’ll tell you about that giddy feeling when their editor (or agent) said those magic words: we want to buy your book.

My Call came in 2004. I experienced all the usual spectrum of emotions: elation, terror, skepticism—this must be a joke, right? Or some horrible mistake? Followed by the glow of accomplishment.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Julie Kramer

I’ve spent my career as a television news producer, doing investigative stories, field work, live shots and newscasts. Often I’d complain how much easier my work would be if I didn’t have to stick with the facts. So when I tried writing fiction, what a surprise to hear me complain how much easier my work would be if only I had some facts.

My point is, fiction is harder than it looks. For those of us geared in reality, making stuff up can feel like cheating. Once I worked through that issue, I found my news skills to be an excellent foundation for fiction.

First, deadlines didn’t scare me. Read the rest of this entry »

By JT Ellison

May 9th, 2006.

It was a lovely spring afternoon, and my parents were visiting as they drove across country on their bi-annual trip between houses. We were watching A History of Violence, and I remember squirming with the slightest bit of embarrassment because we were at the cheerleader scene. Definitely the movie to watch with your parents, I’m telling you. So when the phone rang, I was relieved, it meant we could hit pause. I looked at the television screen right before the caller ID, Viggo’s head had juuuuuuust disappeared, and I was mentally cursing my ability to hit the pause button at precisely the worst moment when I glanced at the caller ID screen and saw the 212 area code.

Cue heart pounding.

Cue exceptionally bad word, starting with F and ending in me. “F*&# me, it’s Scott,” I said, with the utmost delicacy. Hey, I am a crime fiction writer, after all.

By Jordan Dane

Dateline: www.jordandane.com …

In the dead of winter, Jordan served as a checkpoint volunteer on the Iditaski Race in Alaska. JD got flown to a remote no-frills lodge via small floatplane that departed from a frozen lake and landed on the iced-over Yentna River. (Part of this endurance cross-country ski and snowshoe competition follows sections of the Iditarod Trail.) JD checked for mandatory gear, watched for signs of hypothermia, and helped feed the international mix of race participants.

• Jordan once sewed a 6-foot banana—complete with zippered yellow peel and bruises—and camped outside the house of a relative of Mike Nesmith, the wool hatted Monkey. (Mike and Davy Jones were visiting San Antonio at the time.) Wisely, neither Monkey came out of the house that weekend.

• Jordan created a promotional button that was named Best Slogan of the Year in a national energy magazine. The button was featured on the front cover. The slogan? “Ask me if I have gas” The next year, JD followed that success with another button – “May all your gas be natural”.

• As an architect working on the development of downtown San Antonio, JD’s father named the San Antonio River - the Paseo Del Rio.

For more information on the adventures of Jordan Dane, author of No One Heard Her Scream, please visit her website at www.jordandane.com.

By Jordan Dane

I must admit, I was skeptical about blogging in general. It seemed like the most successful people blogged with such regularity and innovation that I only saw it as a potential time drain without any impact on sales. Then, I found the MySpace version of blogging and began to tinker. Here’s what I discovered:

MySpace is FREE and can be used as a business tool for authors. The site claims over 200+ million registered users. And most of these users list their book preferences with great enthusiasm. The MySpace community is an electronically linked group of customer leads. It’s not just for twenty-somethings trying to hook up or Dateline’s mechanism to identify future pedophile guests. And did I mention MySpace was FREE?

My brilliant web designer created my blog on MySpace for a minimal fee. Building a brand, I believed it was important to carry over a consistent design. I also linked my website to my blog to run contests easily, show excerpts, and allow my blog buddies to navigate between my blog and website with ease. Plus, I have a direct sign-up to my mailing list on my blog site, a definite recommendation. Once I had a MySpace blog, I began to explore. Read the rest of this entry »

By CJ Lyons

Secret One: Write the damn book!

Of course, the all important first step is to finish a manuscript. Maybe not even one, it might take several. Most people don’t realize it, but the average published author writes over half a million words before they sell.

Let me repeat that. Half a million words.

We may hear of those “overnight” successes, but they are rare.

Just be prepared that you might not hit a home run the first time out—but that’s all right, because you’ll be building contacts and learning valuable tips that will help your writing career. Read the rest of this entry »