Kerry Schafer: A dream come true via Book Country
Authors dream of moments like the one that happened to Kerry Schafer, author of Between, which came out this week …
Kerry: There are moments that define our lives.
Long stretches of time pass where nothing seems to change. Age creeps up on us. Kids grow from babies into children and teenagers. Jobs and houses come and go. We are altered by all of these things in small ways, but so subtly that we barely notice. And then the tornado comes along and lifts us up out of complacency. In the matter of an instant, we're not in Kansas anymore.
My personal lightning-strike moments all involve phones — trying for hours to contact a loved one who has moved forever beyond my reach, news of a death that dissolves my life as I know it, relaying the news nobody wants to hear.
Mind you, I had a thing about phones long before I had a reason. I have walked a mile to schedule a hair cut, rather than place a call. Which makes it difficult to explain why I spent five years employed as a crisis mental health worker with a phone permanently attached to my body waking and sleeping. (All right, it wasn't exactly attached. Just omnipresent. Lurking.) Crisis workers develop a Pavlovian twitch that coincides with any sort of ring or beep — phones, microwaves, even car doors ajar.
And so, a little over a year ago, I almost didn't answer when my cellphone rang.
Both the phone number and area code were unfamiliar, and my first thought was "damned telemarketers." I answered, thank God. Not a telemarketer at all, but Danielle Poiesz, an editor working at the online author community Book Country.
I'm no stranger to a good adrenaline rush, but that phone call stole my breath and pushed my heart rate into alarm levels.
One of the Berkley editors, Susan Allison, liked the chapters I had posted on the Book Country author community, Danielle said. Would I be willing to send her the full manuscript?
This was a question that seemed not to require an answer. Of course I would send the manuscript. Could I send anything else? Chocolate? Wine? A firstborn child? I'd been dreaming of being published since about sixth grade, and having an editor interested in my work — not just any editor, either, but a Big Six editor who had worked with writers I hero-worship — was like a sighting of the Holy Grail.
Book Country was still new at the time. I'd been lucky enough to be one of the early beta testers and was comfortable playing around on the site, so when I started trying to interest agents in Between, I posted a couple of chapters. It's a great place to get critiques of your writing, as well as connecting with other writers and publishing people, but this time it wasn't about getting feedback. I had worked and re-worked the book to the point where I figured it was done.
In the back of my mind I sheltered a tiny, secret hope that an agent might notice my book and be interested. This is the same tiny hope that inspires me to buy Lotto tickets. The odds are against winning, for sure, and yet somebody always wins, and there's no law that says the winner can't be me.
And, as it happened — I won! Susan liked the book and made an offer. Within the space of a couple of weeks I had both a two-book deal with Berkley and a contract with stellar literary agent Deidre Knight. Since Between was the first book acquired off of Book Country, a round of media events followed: an interview with a NYT reporter (over the accursed phone), an interview with an NPR affiliate (also over the phone), even an interview here at Happy Ever After (blissfully conducted by Internet).
Bit by bit the world settled back into a steady rhythm, but everything had changed. I wasn't on my own with the writing anymore, I was part of a team united in the goal of making Between the best book it could be.
Fast-forward a year and a lot of hard work, and my dream is coming true. Between has hit the shelves a little early in some bookstores and Amazon has already begun delivery. There are reviews and giveaways and launch parties. The best part, though, is when somebody reads the book and loves it. The co-worker who complained that I kept her up all night reading. The girl at the bookstore who asked for an autograph. And most of all, seeing the book where I always dreamed it would be — on a bookstore shelf.
To find out more about Kerry, you can visit her website, www.kerryschafer.com. You can also connect with her on Twitter (@KerrySchafer).