Confused? Oh baby, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

Happy birthday, Seekerville!! Is everyone having fun??

I can't hear you!

Everyone having fun??

WooHoo~~Much better!! Yayayayayayay!

And here's something else to whoop about. I'm giving away a surprise box of goodies including edibles and readables, and that's all I'm gonna say. Gotta keep with the theme of surprises, right? Just leave a comment and you'll be in the drawing! 

Audra here. Well, this has been a journey of change of all of us. When we first dabbled around banding together, we all knew how to make friendships work. But publishing books? I think each of us had a dim concept of what the future would be like ... or better yet, how we thought it would be. LOL! All those active imaginations, you can only guess what our dreams spun through our minds.

And then it happened.

To all of us.


One by one, we were picked off the island by wise and insightful editors.

God is good.

Still, I was curious. I knew what I thought selling a book would be like, but I wondered what my Seeker buds thought of it -- and more importantly -- how surprised (or just out-and-out wrong) we could be.

For today's post, I asked my buds, once the blush of that first sale wore off, what piece of being a published author surprised them the most. In true Seeker style we had some differen - and definite! - opinions : )

Julie Lessman, who interprets the concept of Rewards Per Page as more reasons for having her characters kiss:

A Heart Revealed

Oh, man, the biggest surprise for me was what an emotional roller-coaster it is AFTER you get published. Like a lot of unpublished writers, I thought all the anxiety and self-doubt would dissipate after I signed on the dotted line. I mean that would validate me, wouldn’t it? Give me confidence as a writer? But I discovered (AGAIN!) that true confidence is not in accolades from your editor or a really good review, but instead in where your heart is with God. HE is my confidence when my sales rankings on Amazon.com are high or low, which is why I CLING to the following Scripture from 2 Corinthians ll:3: Do not let my mind “be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.”

Gateway Weddings

Myra Johnson can organize a writer with charts and schedules while creating sizzle between her characters from the first glimpse across the room:

My first surprise came when my publishing house went through a re-organization and I was told I wouldn't get to write the next two books in my series. Then at ACFW I was stunned to learn I'd get to write them after all--with no change in the due date! But after being told several weeks ago it was a no-go, I had no reason to even start writing the next book. Now I have to hustle!


Ruth Logan Herne does her best brainstorming as she fingerpaints with small children, assists in puppy birthing, decorating the perfect wedding cake...I'll stop right there or blogger will toss me off the Internet for excessive verbage, LOL!

Mended Hearts

The thing that most surprised me about being published is that I still have to clean the toilets and the litter box. I mean 'sup wi dat????? Shouldn't there be someone else to do that since my fingers are like insured by Lloyds of London? Or they SHOULD be, right?
But no. And that's the biggest surprise of all, is that you're still expected to do all the things you do now (most authors keep their day jobs for years after being published unless your last name is Rowling). So that means on top of writing the book, you need to market. Do art work. Edits. Revisions. More edits. Check other people's edits. Maintain a public presence (which is only fair, even for the introverts because SOMEONE is investing a lot of money while gambling on your success) And work, clean, take care of kids, etc. But who better than a woman to pull that off, the masters of multi-tasking? And I wouldn't change a minute of it, I love it that much.

Totally.

Sincerely.

The Price of Victory

Sandra Leesmith, our wandering vagabond, sees a perfect setting each day as she travels the countryside, offering her readers a glimpse of far away places:

I was surprised when I read in my publisher's contract that I was required to have a social media presence. Thank God and Tina for Seekerville. But I really do need to work on my Facebook skills. My facebook page is Sandy Wardman Smith and I have two author pages with my children's author page Sandy Wardman and my romance page Sandra Leesmith. But I have no clue what to do with them YET. That is my October birthday bash present to myself. I am going to Facebook School. LOL


Debby Giusti, the very first Seeker published, is always on the lookout for new and unusual settings and situations for her suspenseful tales:

Usually authors need to submit a completed manuscript before their second story
is accepted for publication so when I finished SCARED TO DEATH, my second story,
I submitted it to Krista Stroever, my editor at the time. Book two dealt with a
black market organ racket that I thought worked well in the story. Naturally I
was surprised when she emailed me about a problem that needed to be fixed.
Turns out Krista's father ran one of the largest tissue and bone banks in the

The Captain's Mission

US. She had discussed my story with him, and he had insisted organs were not
bought on the black market in this country.

Fearing Krista wanted me to scrap the story, I called her. By the end of our
conversation, we had agreed that a transplant tourist racket would work instead
of the black market angle. After major revisions, I resubmitted the story.
SCARED TO DEATH went on to win the Daphne du Maurier Award for Inspirational Suspense and was one of four novels Karen S. Wiesner analyzed in her book FROM FIRST DRAFT TO FINISHED NOVEL. The three other stories she featured were I AM LEGEND, by Richard Matheson, HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS, by J.K. Rowling, and THE FRIDAY NIGHT KNITTING CLUB, by Kate Jacobs. Being grouped with such notable authors and winning the Daphne taught me a valuable lesson: The editor always knows best!

Wanted: A Family

Janet Dean weaves romantic notions in historical settings filled with emotion, principles and grace...just like herself : )

After my second book, I could sell on proposal. I wrote 30,000 words of a story with an unacceptable heroine. Of course, I didn’t know the heroine, a ditzy secondary character I loved, was unacceptable, but my editor did. From that experience, I learned to run a blurb past my editor to make sure that the story would work before I wrote the proposal. I’ve had blurbs turned down since then but never wasted time on a story that wouldn’t fly.


Mary Connealy views Rewards Per Page as an excuse to eliminate characters, one shot at a time:

Out of Control

The surprise to me was the marketing required. It's an amazing amount of work. And I was determined to be a great partner in marketing my book. But the number of hours required for it was unexpected. It's fun, doing the blog interviews and connecting with readers, but it can be almost overwhelming at times.

Love By The Book

Cara Lynn James entertains with wit and humor even as her graciousness extends into pages of her books:

I was amazed that extensive revisions had to be finished in a short period of time. I was also surprised that some of the time allotted for writing the second book was eaten up by revisions and promotion on the first. So I was really working on both books at the same time.


Missy Tippens weaves her southern charm into every page of her novels. How in the world she and Ruthy decided to run a cafe together, I'll never understand. Check out the Yankee Belle Cafe on our new website www.seekerville.net. Lots of goodies there!

I had no idea how involved an art fact sheet would be since I'd never

A Family For Faith

seen one. That's why I did a blog post on them once, to help writers prepare.
It's a great thing, and I love doing them. But I'd never imagined how much went
into preparing one.

(For an idea of what she's talking about, visit the blog she wrote in our archives http://seekerville.blogspot.com/2008/05/be-preparedan-art-fact-sheet.html)

And me (Audra Harders, your host today)?

Rocky Mountain Hero

I had definite Barbara Cartland images floating through my mind -- sans boa and fainting couch. I thought after that first sale, all I had to do was come up with the ideas, write the stories and my editor would thank me...stop laughing! I did! Who knew there was a lot more that went into writing a good romance?




So, you still want to write? To publish? You've got to have grit to make it in this business.

But, you're not alone...you have Seekerville. And may we always be here for you to help you through the rough spots and cheer when the big day comes and you can shout--

I GOT THE CALL!!

Audra Harders writes "rugged stories with heart" featuring cowboys who haven't a clue about relationships rescued by ladies who think they have all the answers.