|
Back to Articles Our Interview with Katie Macalister (March 2004): Q. What do you write? What publisher(s) do you write or have you written for? Katie Macalister: I write historical, contemporary, paranormal, and young adult romances, as well as paranormal thrillers and historical mysteries. Right now my books are published by Dorchester and NAL. Q: Tell us a bit about your upcoming/current release(s). KM: Oy. I have eight books out this year, so brace yourself! J They Wear
What Under Their Kilts
(Jan 04) Sex and the
Single Vampire (Mar 04) What’s
French For “Ew!”? (May
04) The Corset
Diaries (May 04) Eyeliner of
the Gods (July 04) The Trouble
With Harry (July 04) You Slay Me/An
Aisling Gray, Guardian Novel (Sept 04) The Taming
of the Dru (Sept 04) I have oodles of books out in 2005, but I’m too exhausted to even think about them. J Q: What year did you get "The Call"? KM: The first romance I sold was in 2001. Kate Seaver at Dorchester bought Noble Intentions in April 2001; it came out February of 2002. Q: How many years had you written before you got "The Call"? KM: I started writing romances in mid 2000, although I had written one mystery before that, and as well as a couple of non-fiction books. I quickly determined I liked writing romance the best, and although I now supplement that by writing thrillers, they are still my favorite types of books to write. Q: Describe your first sale experience. KM: I’m afraid it wasn’t wildly thrilling to anyone but my darling agent Michelle and me. I had submitted Noble Intentions in July of 2000, before I signed with my agent, and the full was requested in January of 2001. Kate Seaver bought it in April. In addition to Noble, she bought sixteen other books from me, so it goes without saying that I adore Kate. J Q: Is there anything you wish you had known/done before you made that first sale or subsequent sales? KM: Not really. Before I sold I had a five year plan of where I wanted my career to go, and that helped me when I started getting offers from other houses that might have sent my career going off in directions I didn’t want. I’ve taken a pretty non-traditional path to success in that rather than focus on any one type of book, I write a variety, but that was also a part of my plan. I’m very grateful to my editors for having faith in my voice being able to carry a variety of books. Q: What is the best piece of craft advice you can give an aspiring author? KM: Don’t sweat the small stuff. I see so many people focused on what font to use, or how to set margins, etc. when what they should be worrying about is how good their story is. The key is to have a legible MS and a killer story. No editor in the world will reject a story because it’s in TNR 11pt rather than 12pt Courier, but they will reject one that hasn’t been polished until it’s blinding. Q: What is the best piece of industry advice can you give an aspiring author? KM: Have a plan for your career. One of the biggest mistakes I see new writers make is to be so focused on selling a book, they can’t look at the big career picture. I know a number of authors who’ve sold one book, and can’t sell another simply because they were so desperate to sell a story and say they were published, they didn’t make the choice that was right for their career. Many of them didn’t even think about their careers, per se—they just wanted to sell a book. That’s fine if that’s your goal, but if you want to make writing a career, you need to sit yourself down and examine just are your goals, and how you can reach them. If you look at the careers of any bestselling authors, you’ll find that all of them had career plans. They decided what they wanted to write, how many books a year they could produce, and they worked with their publishers to get the books on the shelves. Many of them turned down offers that weren’t right for their careers. All view their career as a business, not a hobby. IMHO, that’s the biggest key to success.Back to Articles |