Thursday, December 07, 2006

A New Deal

Since we're launching our Thankful Thursday news day, I guess this is a good time to share that last week I flew up to NYC, and after a hectic but fun Tuesday running uptown, downtown, midtown, eastside and westside, meeting with publishers who'd made offers for my next book, I was so blown away by NAL's super enthusiastic presentation and marketing plan that once I got home on Wednesday, I agreed to write a romantic suspense trilogy for NAL Signet, tentatively beginning either Dec. 2007 or January, 2008.

It's a little like old home week for me since NAL's editorial director, Claire Zion, first discovered me in the slush pile back in 1982 (ironically at NAL during Thanksgiving week), publisher Kara Welsh was deputy publisher in charge of mass market when I arrived at Pocket (and one of the main reasons I wanted to move there in the first place), and my fabulous new editor, Laura Cifelli, had spent a week driving the bidding up during an auction that landed me at Pocket when left Mira about eight years ago. (Laura was at Harper at the time.) I'm convinced there are only twelve people in publishing, and they all keep playing musical chairs.

On Thursday, Fedex showed up with a dozen roses and a lovely Waterford vase, along with a note welcoming me to the NAL family, which was way cool, and made it seem official.

Then, Friday morning, once things calmed down and we got down to discussing the nitty gritty details of the contract -- like delivery dates -- it dawned on me, that as nice as the courtship had been, they're probably going to actually expect me to write the books. LOL

Oh, in other news, I also returned home to an e-mail letting me know that BLAZE (2005) won 1st prize in the romantic suspense category of the Volusia County RWA's Laurel Wreath contest.

So, life is sweet right now. In fact, if the guys who've had the front of my house torn up since the last week of October would just finish building the never-ending porch sometime before New Years, it'd be pretty close to perfect. :)

10 comments:

Nancy Morse said...

Great news, JoAnn. Congratulations.

I'm about to have my roof torn off and a new one put on. That should be fun, trying to work with all that hammering going on overhead and my big brave Malamute hiding under my desk. I had my NY apartment renovated, and isn't it funny that it isn't until you have some renovations done that you hear all the horror stories? As for life being pretty close to perfect, there's lots of stuff going on in my life right now that has given me more than my share of angst, but any day that I wake up breathing is pretty close to perfect.

JoAnn Ross said...

Thanks, Nancy. I'm pretty jazzed about the change.

A new roof, meaning shingles? Or the underneath plywood, too? If you have earphones you use for music -- or perhaps noise cancelling ones for travel or lawn mowing -- you might want to try them. That's the only way I got through the roofing experience a couple years ago.

We'd had some tornadoes hit town, and a microburst right over our neighborhood that took out EVERYONE'S roof on two streets. Insurance paid for everyone to get new roofs, but by the time they were all done, it had taken nine months! Which meant that somewhere, either on my street or right behind me, hammering was going on all day, beginning from about seven in the morning until seven at night. It was flat out exhausting.

I'm sorry about your angst and am sending you positive thoughts and lots of bright white light from my mystical magical Smoky Mts. And yes, breathing is always good. :)

Anonymous said...

Congratulations!!! What great news.

For some reason, I always LOVE home renovations. We're in the midst of installing new wainstcotting and windows in the dining room. When better than the holiday season, right? LOL.

JoAnn Ross said...

I think it depends on what you're having done. Although we upgraded to cool new dimensional shingles for the roof, it was still, just a roof, which isn't all that exciting. Although it was a pain, I loved having the kitchen redone, and replacing all our carpeting with hardwoods, and I know I'm going to love our porch, but meanwhile, since we can't get to one of the outdoor electrical outlets, and there's essentially a woodshop on our front lawn, which has undoubtedly killed a lot of grass under the straw they've put down, we're not able to get more than half our outdoor Christmas lights up. With grandbabies coming on the 20th, I'd hoped it would be done by Thanksgiving, as promised. (Though, having been a construction coordinator and field superintendent in a prior life before writing, I knew at the time construction always takes at least 1/3 longer and costs at least 1/3 - 1/2 more than initially planned.) Which is why I'm rethinking the decision to have 3 of our 4 bathrooms gutted after the new year. :)

Now, wainscotting and windows is something defiintely to have fun with! Enjoy!

Alfie said...

JoAnn, I've been dying to hear how your trip to NYC went but figured you'd let us know when it was time.

Mega, mega, mega Congrats! And yes, we also are going to expect you to write the books. Yay!

I'm glad your also celebrating the Laurel Wreath Contest news. With all the excitement, that could have got lost in the shuffle. So more congrats.

Patti O'Shea said...

Congratulations, JoAnn!!! That's great news! And a second congratulations for the Laurel Wreath Award win!

Anonymous said...

What a fabulous-sounding trip! You've inspired me to keep chasing that dream. Congrats, too, on the new publishing home.

Nancy Morse said...

Thanks for the white light, JoAnn. The angst is caused by family issues which never seem to end. As for the roof, it's the whole deal, thanks to Hurricane Wilma which blew through here in Oct. 05. Insurance is paying for it. Our insurance company went belly-up, so we're in a transitional stage where we're covered by a state agency until it's time to go into the state insurance pool. The agency paid up pretty quick, so now all that remains is the actual work. I may send the dog over to my mom's for a few days. Let him deal with the dysfunction over there. At least he won't be cowering from the noise. I'm definitey going with the earphones. I guess what this means is that we're all pretty lucky to have roofs over our heads.

Tessa McDermid said...

Wow! What great news, JoAnn. Best wishes on your new writing home.

We've been waiting to have our roof done -- needed it because of age and then found out the insurance company would pay most of the cost because of storm damage. Now we're in the middle of a snowpacked city so not sure when the guys will show up. We finally got our new storm door put on. We thought it would be done before Thanksgiving. . . but the installer went hunting! Maybe for his Thanksgiving turkey, I'm not sure.

Anonymous said...

JoAnn,

This is truly fabulous news! Mega congrats!

Faye, tossing handfuls of glittery gold confetti into the air and generally making merry