I wanted to thank you for a marvelous year.
In 2014, SINFUL FOLK became a #1 Historical Fiction bestseller on Amazon, received a nomination for the Pacific Northwest Bookseller’s Award, has been reviewed by a number of amazing top authors, is featured at great bookstores like Elliott Bay Bookstore and Powell’s Books, was on several top 10 lists, and has sold amazingly well. I did in-person readings of the book at bookstores up and down the West Coast — my favorites were readings at Auntie’s Bookstore in Spokane and in my hometown of Olympia, where I read accompanied by a great upright bass player at Orca Books.
Primarily, I have my readers to thank for this success — thank you for all your reading, good thoughts, and lovely reviews! Your reading and encouragement has meant the world to me!
A big part of that success, I feel, is due to the marvelous work of my team at Campanile and beyond! You took my book from a raw manuscript to a printed, e-book and audiobook success! I’ve been excited to see the launch of my first major book first-hand, and I have a list of wonderful professionals to thank for this success.
Here’s a short list of the professionals I wish to thank (I’m sure I’ve forgotten someone!)
THANK YOU to Linda Marus at Campanile Books, who shephered this book along and brought it to readers everywhere. A first-tier thank you is also due to Nikki McClure, the amazing Northwest papercut artist, for her lovely front cover and internal illustrations. What a marvelous complement to the story her illustrations turned out to be! Here’s a link to more about Nikki McClure.
Several people helped readers to FIND this book in the first place. The book was sent out by book publicist Mary Bisbee-Beek last October and November, resulting in *starred reviews* from several publications. Wow, that was exciting!
In December (last year!), I received great endorsements from bestselling authors Brenda Vantrease, Karen Maitland, Ella March Chase, William Dietrich and many more. The capstone on those gifts was that the wonderful historical romance author Kathryn Le Veque read the book, and included an excerpt in her historical novel LORD OF LIGHT — which really accelerated things!
Then the good people at MJ Rose’s Author Buzz Shelf Awareness promotion group helped the book along. TLC Book Tours brought my book to a number of book bloggers, as did Historical Novel Virtual Book Tours — thanks to Trish Browning of TLC and Amy Bruno of Historical VBT !
I worked with book layout and cover design specialist Sara DeHaan, who did such a great job on interior design of the text for Campanile, and consulted with me on so many details. Thank you to Sara! (More about Sara at dehaanarts.com).
And I was privileged to work with a fantastic editor — Elizabeth Johnson. Her clients include Sasquatch Books, Mountaineers Books, Braided River, Skipstone, Girl Friday Productions, Mouse Tales Press and Campanile. I loved working with the very detailed Elizabeth the editor!
My work has also been brought to life in a marvelous audiobook edition for Audible and iTunes with the voice of the fantastic French-Canadian actress Anne Day-Jones, whose filmography can be found here. I was incredibly blessed to have such a strong powerful voice bring Mear to life! Thank you, Campanile and Anne Day-Jones!
Several years ago, I worked with Jenny Bent of the Bent Agency, who helped me refine the story. I also had an early reading from the insightful editor Kyra Freestar, who provided a great read of an early draft from outsider’s perspective. Thank you to Jenny Bent and to Kyra at Bridge Creek Editing.
And after the book was nearly ready, I was assisted by proofreader Barry Foy, who did such an adroit job with all my different languages in Sinful Folk and all the strange medieval references. Thank you, Barry! Finally, Larry Clark of Iron Owl Dev, helped enormously with e-book editing. Thank you, Larry!
A book is not a solitary enterprise, and I am grateful to all who helped my work to come to market in print, e-book and audiobook form!
And what’s on my plate now?
For those interested, I am now working on a novel in a totally different genre… under a pen name, for fun (until I get around to finishing my work on the SINFUL FOLK “sequel” — GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHT, which I have outlined and on the list of “projects to complete sometime soon”).
