Happy Release Day, Kerry Schafer!

Today marks a very exciting day for a friend and colleague of mine, Kerry Schafer. As you may recall, back in January of last year, I came across Kerry's manuscript on Book Country and passed it along to the editorial staff at Penguin, who quickly fell in love with it as I had, acquiring a two-book deal from the debut author.

Now, the day has come that the fabulous manuscript is bound and hitting the shelves!

Vivian Maylor can’t sleep. Maybe it’s because she just broke up with her boyfriend and moved to a new town, or it could be the stress of her new job at the hospital. But perhaps it’s because her dreams have started to bleed through into her waking hours. 

All of her life Vivian has rejected her mother’s insane ramblings about Dreamworlds for concrete science and fact, until an emergency room patient ranting about dragons spontaneously combusts before her eyes—forcing Viv to consider the idea that her visions of mythical beasts might be real. 

And when a chance encounter leads her to a man she knows only from her dreams, Vivian finds herself falling into a world that seems strange and familiar all at once—a world where the line between dream and reality is hard to determine, and hard to control…

In honor of the release of BETWEEN (Ace Books), Kerry took time out of her busy blog tour schedule to do a little Q&A with me:

DP: So, the big question...how does it feel to be a published author?!

KS: Honestly? It feels like I've walked into my own book. Reality has become a little fuzzy, in all the good ways. I just can't believe my book is actually really going to be on bookshelves! I've been throwing around a lot of exclamation marks.

DP: What inspired the story behind BETWEEN?

KS: A lot of factors came together at just the right moment: an errant penguin (who happened to be named Vivian), my introduction to the works of MC Escher, and long, fascinating conversations on the nature of reality with my friend and co-worker, Jamie. Oh, and Nanowrimo! I'm pretty sure that writing fast and furiously had something to do with those disparate elements coalescing as they did.

DP: The revision process can be a tricky--and exhausting--one. What was the hardest thing for you to revise/rewrite? Did you have to kill any of your darlings?

KS: I have an entire graveyard full of darlings. Very few elements of the initial draft remain, in fact. I eliminated favorite characters and entire plot arcs and even my very favorite phrases.

DP: Tell us a little about your experience with the publishing process. Any particular likes, dislikes, surprises? Give it to me straight!

KS: Publishing is a strange animal. One of the fascinating (and frustrating) things about it is the aspect of "hurry up and wait." You are given some sort of a deadline. You clear your schedule, forego important aspects of daily living, and drive yourself to the finish line. You turn your manuscript or your revisions or copy edits or whatever in on time, excited by your success at meeting said deadline. Time then passes. Slowly. Two months later, your editor is just finding time to get to what you slaved away to turn in! I know this isn't just my story, because I hear it from my friends. Also? This isn't because editors are sitting around with their feet up, gossiping about their authors and drinking Margaritas. They too are busting their butts.

DP: Who, if anyone, guided you or acted as your mentor as you went from being an aspiring writer to a debut author?

KS: It wasn't just one person – sort of that "it takes a village" thing. My wonderful agent, Deidre Knight, for starters. And my friend Leigh Evans blazed the path for me – her debut (The Trouble with Fate, and you should definitely read this!) released about a month before Between. She was awesome about sharing information and her experience, which kept me from panic a few times, and from blunders a lot of times. Also, Julie Butcher, who has been through the book release experience with loved ones more times than I can easily count. My whole Twitter support team, people at work – the list is very long.

DP: Do you have a blog tour or any signings lined up that we should be putting on our calendars?

KS: I do have a fabulous blog tour lined up, which is currently ongoing. You can see the details of that here on my blog. I will be signing at Auntie's Bookstore in Spokane, WA on February 16 at 2 pm. And I'm planning to be at RT in Kansas City.

DP: What's up next??

KS: The second Book of the Between, tentatively titled Wakeworld. This is currently with my editor. (Reference question #4 and the whole waiting thing.)

Thank you so much for having me at your blog today! And thank you for discovering me on Book Country!!

Thank YOU for joining us, Kerry! 

HAPPY RELEASE DAY!

Exciting Book Country News

Today I can finally share with you all some exciting news, re: my job as Editorial Coordinator at Book Country, and Book Country in general...

We've helped orchestrate the first true discovery of a Book Country member! YAY!!

Kerry Schafer, an awesome woman from Washington State who I met through the lovely Allison Pang, was one of our beta testers for the site. I could tell from her first posting on Book Country that she had a tremendous amount of talent, so when she posted some pages of her fantasy novel, BETWEEN, I was stoked to check it out. I read it and instantly loved it! And after passing along my excitement to the Berkeley editorial staff, they did too.

Several weeks later, viola! The official Penguin press release goes out on the PR Newswire:

NEW YORK, Jan. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Ace Books, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), today announced the signing of a new urban fantasy series by a writer discovered on Bookcountry.com, Penguin's nine-month-old online genre fiction workshopping community. The two-book deal marks the first acquisition from the site since the Book Country community launched in May of 2011.

BETWEEN, by debut novelist Kerry Schafer, was discovered by Susan Allison, Vice President, Editorial Director of The Berkley Publishing Group, who acquired it and its sequel, WAKEWORLD, the first two books in a planned trilogy.

"We're very excited to work with Kerry Schafer on BETWEEN and WAKEWORLD. She's a wonderful new voice in the urban fantasy genre," said Allison. "The fact that Penguin's own Book Country helped connect us to her is inspiring too. There's so much talent out there, and now we have one more way to find it. "

Schafer, a Mental Health Crisis Response Specialist in rural Washington State, talked about the importance of the online community in her road to publication. "My experience with Book Country has been amazing. I had a different novel up on the site and discovered that the feedback helped improve my writing. Criticism takes a little getting used to; my thought was that I should get some pages up and start building a thicker skin. When I uploaded BETWEEN to Book Country, I wasn't even thinking about it being picked up by an editor or an agent. What happened after that felt like pure magic."

David Shanks, CEO Penguin Group (USA), said, "Penguin is proud that Kerry Schafer, one of Book Country's original beta testers, was able to use the community's resources and will now be published by one of our own imprints. Book Country provides an exciting place for our editors to find great new talent."

Schafer's agent, Deidre Knight of The Knight Agency, said, "I marveled at the high level of talent I found on Book Country. BETWEEN is one of the most imaginative submissions I've read in a long time. I found myself compulsively reading more than half the book in one sitting."

Molly Barton, Penguin's Global Digital Director, who spearheaded the launch of the Book Country community in 2011, said, "Book Country is a constructive online place for writers to post and refine their fiction while helping other writers improve their craft. Finding such a great project to acquire in a community that is less than a year old tells me that Book Country is working exactly the way it's supposed to. I couldn't be more thrilled!"

About Penguin Group (USA)

Penguin Group (USA) Inc. is the U.S. member of the internationally renowned Penguin Group. Penguin Group (USA) is one of the leading U.S. adult and children's trade book publishers, owning a wide range of imprints and trademarks, including Viking, G. P. Putnam's Sons, The Penguin Press, Riverhead Books, Dutton, Penguin Books, Berkley Books, Gotham Books, Portfolio, New American Library, Plume, Tarcher, Philomel, Grosset & Dunlap, Puffin, and Frederick Warne, among others. The Penguin Group (www.penguin.com) is part of Pearson plc, the international media company.

See the press release HERE

The New York Times also picked up the story and I'm sure we'll have more to come this week! It's such exciting news! The fact that it's Penguin who did the deal doesn't even really make that much of a difference to me, honestly--I mean, it's great, of course, but what this deal means is that the site and initiative is working. Writers who might not get their due recognition getting the help, appreciation, and opportunities they deserve. =)

A big congratulations to Kerry!