Guest blog by Jenny Gardiner

Hi Sylvia–thanks so much for inviting me over to your blog! You know I’m one of your biggest fans and have been since way back when I read your entries in Lori Foster’s fabulous contest. That was back when I’d never written any fiction–I was simply a fan of Lori’s books! In fact, I only decided to dabble in it because hey, why not?! My totally lame entry went nowhere fast, but I remember reading your and HelenKay’s entries and taking note of what a winning entry looked like…

Flash forward a couple of years. I actually did venture into fiction, and found out that for someone trained as a journalist and bound by writing facts, writing fiction and making it all up as I went along was awfully fun and liberating!

As a fellow “contest baby” I think you are fabulous for helping out the AT IV authors with such a very generous contest to draw attention to their campaigns. I know you really appreciate what a wonderful launching pad winning a writing contest can be, and I’m here to second that notion.

When I entered the American Title III contest, I was, I’m embarrassed to admit, a little in the dark about the whole thing. I vaguely remembered having seen some posts on a loop in which authors asked for votes that previous winter. I was new to RWA, new to loops, new to all of that stuff. I obliged those authors by casting my votes when asked, and that was that. And when the AT III contest was announced and I learned that they were looking for humorous women’s fiction, I figured it was a great way to get my writing in front of an editor’s eyeballs, so I entered.

Now, you’ll know I’m crazy when I also admit that once I found out I was a finalist, I hesitated to actually accept–I was worried that it would tie up my manuscript! D’oh! Lucky for me, an agent friend gave me a huge dope slap and told me all of the fabulous things that went along with being in a contest like this: the exposure, the ability to meet a lot of people, even more industry professionals’ eyeballs being on your work. What can I say? I told you I was clueless!

Once I realized this, I also realized that in an industry in which one has so very little control, this contest put an enormous amount of control squarely in my lap. I viewed this contest as mine to win or mine to lose. And that beautiful acceptance letter I got? I viewed it as my own personal Golden Ticket, just like in Willy Wonka (and I still have it taped up right next to me at my desk!).

The American Title contest goes on over a long period of time, so it did get exhausting. There were phases of two week-long voting frenzies, followed by lags in which I felt I’d been left to clean up after a wild fraternity party–much of my day-to-day life just got put on hold while I was working it to get votes. Dishes stacked eye-high, tumbleweeds of dog fur on my floor. I did remember to feed and care for my kids on a daily basis, though . But the contest was also a lot of fun. We were lucky to have a fabulous group of finalists and we’ve all become good friends and each other’s biggest cheerleaders (in fact, Judi Fennell has gone on to two far more grueling contests with the Gather.com ones, and is now one of five finalists, and we’re all keeping our fingers crossed that win or lose, it leads to a publishing contract for her).

Each month in which I remained in the contest meant I had that much more time to figure out how I could reach out to more potential voters. Now, at the time I hadn’t been thinking terribly long-term. But after it was over, I realized this gave me a fabulous additional gift–I had all sorts of people who were familiar with the title of my book, who might at least pick it up if they saw it in a bookstore, and many of whom felt “vested” in it, having supported it for 6 months during the contest. In my town, I’m constantly running into people from my kids’ soccer teams, academic teams, choral groups, schools, my hairdresser’s (they handed out my card to every client AND kept my cards in their bathroom), who are asking when they can buy the book. It’s really such an honor.

Last spring I attended a writing conference at which Michael Cader, founder of Publisher’s Marketplace, discussed industry trends. And he was frank in his somewhat grim assessment of the publishing industry, and how hard it is to break through the noise of publicity in the book world. And he pointed out that most authors cannot expect an inordinate amount of support (a la heavyhitters like John Grisham) from their publishers, because it’s simply not how things work these days. But, he added, the great equalizer is the Internet. And he said that people who are able to tap into the internet to expand their marketing base start out with a huge advantage when it comes time to sell your book. And so by sheer dumb luck, great good fortune, and perhaps a little bit of my early career publicity/marketing background buried in the depths of my brain, I was able to at least make a little headway in establishing my book’s presence, long before it was an actual book.

So, for this, I cannot begin to say how grateful I am. For Dorchester and Romantic Times for having provided this fantastic opportunity to me–wow, I can’t begin to thank them enough. And for the–literally– thousands of people who have helped me to get where I am, I am really humbled by their generosity.

Not long ago we attended the American Idol concert, and one thing that stuck with me was how very grateful this group of performers was to be on that stage. They knew that the audience played a large part in helping to put them there. And that is most definitely how I feel toward the many people who have backed me along this journey. It’s helped me to appreciate even more what a special gift I’ve been given.

So thanks to you, Sylvia, for extending a helping hand to this year’s contestants, and also for giving me the chance to shout-out to all who have helped me in this crazy journey!

Jenny Gardiner
www.JennyGardiner.net

Aside from Sylvia:

Check out an excerpt from SLEEPING WITH WARD CLEAVER: HERE!

And you can pre-order it here: www.amazon.com

Thank you!