An Awesome Announcement

This is the stuff a writer’s dreams are made of.

I got an email from an acquisitions editor last night that said:

“I started reading Food of Love tonight… And I love it…the characters are so real and the situations so fascinating...

Bravo. Wow, even. I’ll get a contract in the mail to you tomorrow.

I will definitely be proud to publish and promote it. Speaking of which, would you mind if I begin mentioning it on Twitter, on Facebook, and perhaps in my blog? Those could help to build excitement about its release.

Please let me know as soon as possible.”

And, um, I did say yes. He hopes to publish it by early fall. Then hopefully, my other backlist book, the Best Revenge—and then he’ll look at my current work.

I’m going to be back in print! I have a career again.

I’ve been knocking on agents doors for five years since my old publishing company went under, and I’ve gone through the waiting game of agents sitting on partials and fulls for years at a time, only to send a curt form letter, letting me know they’re the windshield and I’m the bug.

But Popcorn Press contacted ME. Yes. The editor liked my blog and my writing style and said he might be interested in my backlist. I didn’t respond right away. I was so sure the agent who had my full was going to take me on and want my whole list.

But…of course…in the end, my road to corporate publishing went the same old/same old route.

So I sent the two books off to Popcorn Press at the end of June.

I was going to go indie if this didn’t work, but indie scares me—I’m not good at being there in the jungle all by myself.

So this is perfect for me. No agent/boss. No marketing department undermining my editor. No waiting three years for the launch. Just an honest partnership with a real person.

I’m hoping he’ll use the cover I won in a contest last winter, designed by the brilliant Meghan Derico of Derico Photography. She read the whole book and really got the essence of my romantic comedy-thriller in this design. The white chocolate truffle and the dark chocolate truffle represent the white and African American heroines perfectly--and notice the little drop of blood on the dagger? It exactly matches the rose. And the music stand: yes,  Shakespeare did say the food of love is music, although, as my heroine says, "If Mr. Shakespeare had spent more time with women, he'd have known the food of love is not music but chocolate."

I think it’s gawjus:

Oh, and did I forget to mention, “squeeeeeeee!” ?