Welcome to the final part of my
interview with the queen of all that is horrifically Halloween, Ms. Danielle
DeVor.
VC: Thanks for making it for our final
sit down, Danielle…. Could you please put that knife away?
DD: You did say this was our final
interview but leaving it up to me to determine how final it is, is never a good
thing.
VC: Well, I’ll raise you one
crossbow pointed at your black heart, to your knife.
DD: Well, aren’t we in a mood.
VC: I wish I could cut to
commercial break right now. So Danielle, Sorrow’s Point has been released. How
exciting has the release process been?
DD: It has been murder, but in a
good way. Reception for the Sorrow’s Point has been incredible. It has received
a lot of attention and is receiving overwhelmingly fantastic reviews on Amazon
and Good Reads. I am very humbled.
VC: Oh… that’s just the arsenic
talking. I have read Sorrow’s Point and loved it. The atmosphere of that manor
house was so thick that I actually felt the anguish of your characters.
DD: Thank you. Throughout my
research on demonic possession, one of the facts that came up time and time
again was the atmosphere created by the inflicted. It wasn’t just the person
possessed that was impacted by it. It was everyone around them, as demonstrated
by the couple featured in my story. Their marriage has gone beyond the brink,
pushed over by their poor daughter.
VC:
So, why don’t we dive deep into the submission process in this final interview.
How did you approach the writing of your query letter? What resources did you
use to create a winning query letter? Can you provide the query letter that
landed your publisher?
DD: I started reading everything I
could online about writing a query letter. When most of this turned out false,
I found Absolute Write Water Cooler and some kind writers took me in and helped
me really write a solid query letter.
Query Letter for Sorrow’s Point:
Not all exorcists are created equal-
especially those that are “marked”.
When defrocked ex-priest, Jimmy
Holiday, agrees to help an old friend with his sick daughter, Lucy, Jimmy
doesn’t expect the horrors that await him. Blackmoor, his friend’s new
residence, rests upon the outskirts of the town of Sorrow’s Point. The mansion’s
history of magic, mayhem, and death makes it almost a living thing – a haunted
mansion straight out of Flowers in the Attic. Jimmy must decide if Lucy is only
ill, or if the haunting of the house and her apparent possession is real.
After the house appears to affect him
as well; seeing colors of magic when rooms of the house are warded by a witch
and his voice taking on a power he doesn’t understand, Jimmy is met by a
transient who tells him he has “the Mark”. Whatever being “marked” means, Jimmy
doesn’t care. All he wants to do is help Lucy. Helping Lucy means performing
the exorcism.
Jimmy knows the ceremony, but it's
belief that matters. And if a demon is using a little girl as a meatsuit, his
faith had better be strong enough to kick it back to Hell. Otherwise, he might
damn them both.
VC: Did you have to write and
re-write this query letter to get it right?
DD: Several times. There were
moments where I had to force myself to sit down and rework it for the 90th
time. Sort of like putting a knife to my own throat.
VC: A position I’m sure you’re
familiar with. Can you tell us about your challenges in getting your first book
published?
DD: Well, sadly enough, Tail of the Devil was finished right
when the market for vampire books got saturated after the Twilight craze. I
couldn’t get an agent to take it on, though many had good things to say about
it. Finally, I decided to query small publishers that published YA and found a
home for it with Eirelander Publishing.
VC: What sort of changes did your
publisher make you do to your manuscript? Did they change the title of the
book, restrict the page count, and change plot/ character?
DD: One change was that I had to
cut down on some of the foul language. My MC is a street kid, so he cusses.
But, the editor thought I had a little too much and had me tone it down a
little. The title was originally “Riding on the tail of the Devil” but the
editor though that too long, so it was shortened to Tail of the Devil. The plot and characters were untouched.
VC: How long did it take you to
publish your first book, after you started trying?
DD: Roughly one year. The
publisher, Eirelander, let me know they wanted it 6 weeks after I queried them
about the book.
VC: Synopsis: Love them or hate
them? Why? How on earth do you write an effective synopsis?
DD: I am not a fan of writing a
synopsis. Mostly, because people make a judgment off the query letter more
often than a synopsis.
The best advice I ever got was to
think of a synopsis like you would think of describing a movie to someone. Add
all the key action points, but keep it simple enough so that who you are
talking to can understand the plot.
VC: What kills me about the
synopsis is that you have to create several different versions. No one in the
publishing industry seems to embrace any sort of standards regarding this. You
have one agent requesting a single page synopsis, then a publisher requests a
ten page synopsis, which is different than the three pager. It’s very
frustrating.
DD: I agree. It’s like having to
write that senior thesis, over and over again.
VC: If you had to go back and do
it all over, is there any aspect of your novel or getting it published that you
would change?
DD: I would write the book faster.
Who knows what would have happened if I got it out there more quickly.
VC: The first edit phase, did they
send it back for tons of corrections or just a few?
DD: I would describe my edits as
medium on this book. I did have things to change, but I was able to complete
the first round within a few days.
VC: Were you shocked to find out
the amount of work/needed to get your book in shape?
DD: Not really. I had harder beta
reads than what I saw in my edits.
VC: What were the most common
mistakes found in the rougher version of your work?
DD: Overuse of certain words that
even my betas didn’t catch.
VC: For me, I was told adverbs
weren’t my best friends.
DD: They’re not. They are sneaky
little bitches.
VC: Some say a book is like a
child to an author. Were you able not to feel the emotional impact associated
with your editor/publisher’s suggested changes to your manuscript? Did you ever
get frustrated with the editing process?
DD: I was lucky in that my editor
loved my book. So, her changes, I knew, were coming from a good place. There
were some minor things that I disagreed on and later ended up changing. The
frustration wasn’t with the editing process. It was myself. I tend to always
want to be early, and I’ll work myself to death to reach an imaginary deadline.
VC: What do you think about the
publishing world today?
DD: I think it’s in great
upheaval. There is a sense of flux because of the e-book market expanding.
VC: I think the new crop of Indie
authors and boutique publishers, like our beloved Crescent Moon Press, have
rewritten the rules and the big publishing houses are struggling with change.
DD: Very much so.
VC: What was going through your
mind when you found out you landed a publisher? Can you tell us about the very
moment you found out you had a publisher interested in your work?
DD: I was scared. Then, I read the
contract, and got even more scared. Though, it was nice to know that I didn’t
suck after all and Mathias was good enough to get out into the world.
VC: I think my reaction was, “Holy
SHIT!” That was followed by a lot of “Holy Shit”. When your first book was
published did it feel rewarding as you thought it would be?
DD: It was honestly a stressful
time. A lot was resting on my shoulders- mostly put there by myself. It is also
hard to get press when you are with a small publisher, so it’s important for
you to try to get people to know who you are.
VC: Good point. I can’t stress
enough how important networking is. Also, I think people get so weighed down with
the whole forest when they should be breaking it apart into smaller section of
trees.
DD: Exactly. Start locally and
work your way out. Do this while working the social media sphere. Working on a
local and national level can be done quite successfully if planned correctly.
VC: How many times did you have to
submit to get published?
DD: I subbed Tail of the Devil to
4 different publishers, all at one time. So, I guess you could say I only had
one round. I subbed Sorrow’s Point to only 3 publishers, and Crescent Moon
Press took it on that first round.
VC: Were their any resources that
you would recommend for other's to use to get published?
DD: ASMSG- they are a great
writing group that will help with publicity on Facebook, Twitter, and
Goodreads. And, Absolute Write Water Cooler.
VC: Tell us about your publisher,
Crescent Moon Press. How has your experience been with them.
DD: So far, it’s been great.
Sorrow’s Point was originally supposed to be published in July 2013, but Steph
thought, giving the subject matter, October and the Halloween season would be a
better fit. So, October 15, 2013 became my official release date for Sorrow’s
Point.
VC: Do you believe an agent is
necessary to get published?
DD: No, I don’t. Now, to get with
a big publisher, they are helpful. But to get published with a small press? I
don’t think they are necessary.
VC: Let’s discuss cover design.
How did the process work? Were you happy with the end result of your novel’s
cover?
DD: For Tail of the Devil, cover
design happened after I got the final edits done. They had me fill out a form
with thoughts, and then, the cover came out being something totally different
from what I expected, but I really liked what they came up with. And yes, I
loved it. I liked the idea of showing Mathias as victorious, rather than a
scared kid.
VC: Danielle, thank you for
stopping by my blog. Her book, Sorrow’s Point has just been released and is
available on Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com. I’ve read it and thoroughly
enjoyed it. I’m sure the readers out there will enjoy it to.
DD: Thanks again for having me.
VC: You can also visit Danielle
online at http://danielledevor.wordpress.com. Her additional links are below.
Twitter: @sammyig
Amazon Link for Sorrow’s Point:
http://www.amazon.com/Sorrow’s-Point-Danielle-Devor/dp/1939173418/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
Barnes and Noble Link for
Sorrow’s Point: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sorrows-point-danielle-devor/1117032105?ean=9781939173416
Amazon Link for Tail of the
Devil: http://www.amazon.com/Tail-of-the-Devil-ebook/dp/B00CJHO7D8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367324817&sr=8-1&keywords=tail+of+the+devil
Barnes and Noble Link for Tail of the
Devil: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tail-of-the-devil-danielle-devor/1115225829?ean=2940016494050
