Heidi Heilig

Giveaway: Signed ARC (International)

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Hey! So! I have one last ARC of THE GIRL FROM EVERYWHERE, and I defaced it with my signature in bronze sharpie. Maybe someone wants it?

This could be yours! Sorry I wrote in it.
This could be yours! Sorry I wrote in it.

Since I’m trying to drum up email addresses for my newsletter, I was thinking: INTERNATIONAL GIVEAWAY! Do me a favor and subscribe (at the bottom right of that page) for my monthly thoughts and musings, book and event news, peccadillos and misadventures. In exchange, I’ll enter your name into the giveaway, ending November 15th. (Winner will be announced that week!)

Yes? YES!

New York Comic Con Appearance/Secret Password

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My first official book-related appearance will be at New York Comic Con on Saturday October 10th! 

I’ll be on an Epic Reads Book Club panel at 12:15 with Actual Real Life Authors Jodi Meadows (Mirror King & My Lady Jane),  Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton (Tiny Pretty Things), Danielle Paige (Yellow Brick War), and Dan Wells (Bluescreen).

 
I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little intimidated! So if you see me around, PLEASE say hello and remind me how we know each other. Grade school? Twitter? Coffee shop? Midnight brawl in a dark alley? (Please specify WHICH dark alley!)
And give me the password–“navigation“–for the best swag, while supplies last!

The Girl From Everywhere Cover Reveal and Giveaway!

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Are you the type to judge a book by its cover?

If so, get out your gavel!

Are you excited? I am. The fantastic artist, Ray Shappell, made eight–EIGHT!–cover comps to look over, and everyone fell in love with this one. And here’s a sneak peek of the first line, if that will help sway the court.

To enter the US giveaway for an annotated ARC, head to YA Books Central!

That’s right: if you win, you get to read the book 6 months early (without having to time travel!), along with all my random notes, musings, and doodles in the margins.

And if you’re feeling particularly adventurous, add the book on Goodreads. Or if you’re want to go absolutely wild, pre-order it at HarperCollins or Amazon.

The “Ta-Da”–Timelines in Publishing

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I’m seeing lots of Twitter Chatter (Chitter? … Uh) about the Bologna Book Fair, and that’s how I know that my Book Deal is just about one year old!

“So why isn’t it out already?” says all my very well-intentioned family and those friends who are not aware of publishing timelines.
Why does your book still look like a stack of printer paper?
Is this some kind of marketing thing?
A year and a half ago, I, too, would have been asking this question. I had a very hazy idea of How Huge Word Docs Become Books. It seemed a bit like magic. “See here, in one hand, an agent, in the other, a publisher–I bring them together and ta da!”  A puff of smoke, and there you are in a ruffled party dress, sitting on a tall stack of your own books at the launch party in your favorite local indie. Right? 
Well. Ask any magician, they’ll tell you that “ta-da” covers the interesting and complicated part. 
Unfortunately, in publishing, unlike in magic tricks, the ta-da can take years. (Which is still faster than in musical theatre where the ta-da can take decades…but that’s another timeline!)
So far, my timeline looks like this:
  • Mid-November 2012: “What’s this thing everyone’s doing writing books or something?”
  • July 2013: “Finish” manuscript. 
  • August 2013: Finish Query Letter. (Thank you Query Shark!)
  • Fall 2013: Querying. I try to send out one letter a week, taking the time to make sure that I’ve got the submission correct–first five pages pasted into the email, or first ten in a pdf? Or no pages at all? I always feel like it shows respect to follow directions and I wasn’t in a rush.
  • December 2013: I speak to two agents and sign with Molly at The Bent Agency.
  • January and February 2014: I polish the manuscript with Molly–one of the reasons I felt like she was the best fit for me was that she had ideas to edit the MS and her comments were very astute.
  • March 2014: Molly takes the manuscript to Bologna. Editors are interested. There is a bit of upheaval at home; I have an out-of-town friend visiting in our tiny studio apartment, I’d just gotten out of the hospital for pre-term labor problems, and some of the editors are wondering if I have ideas for second (and possibly third) books in the series. I’m supposed to be on bedrest but my friend needs the couch, so I lay on pillows on the floor in the kitchen and put my computer on my lap and bang out some outlines for potential future works. 
  • April 2014: There was enough interest that Molly sent out auction rules. Then multi-book pre-empt offers come in with Greenwillow at HarperCollins and Hotkey in the UK, and we accept happily.
  • May 2014: I panic and start working on Book 2.
  • June 2014: I have a baby! The birth is very dramatic. Also, I get my edit letter. Good times! If you have never rewritten your debut novel with a sleeping newborn on your lap you are missing out. Does wonders to focus the mind. I get the work done two weeks before the deadline. (I just reread this: it sounds snarky but I am in complete earnest. I was high on hormones and adrenaline and it was marvelous.)
  • August 2014: The contract from Hot Key arrives. 
  • September 2014: I send back my edits, and the contract from Harper Collins arrives. (All this time, my tireless agent had been negotiating behind the scenes with the contract people at both Hot Key and HarperCollins; Molly is like a swan, poised and lovely but the feet are paddling like mad under there. Also, she’s can be dangerous; if you see her heading straight towards you, divest yourself of any buns and get out of there.)
  • October 2014: I get my 2nd round edit letter.
  • November 2014: I send back my 2nd round of edits. I am asked about my ideas for covers and I sort of shrug and flap my hands to try to indicate exactly how bad I am at visual and artistic design.
  • January 2015: I get a few more small notes and make the fixes. I realize that Book 2 is due in another few months and I start freaking out all over again.
  • February 2015: I get ONE more note, no biggie, just REWRITE THE FIRST PAGE which was more angst than every single other rewrite thus far. I use nearly the entire allotted time to work on it and get it in just a day before deadline.
  • March 2015: I get a couple more edits, I send them back the same day. BOOM. Done with line edits. Uh. . . except now we’re off to copy edits!
And that’s where we are now. Sometime soon, I’m aware that covers will be developed. Jackets and layout will be designed and copy written. Then ARCs will be printed, I think? People will read and possibly review them. “Marketing” will happen. (I think probably marketing is a magic trick of its own.) I will try to plan a launch party, complete with ruffled party dress. Other things too, I’m sure–I’ll keep you posted. But you can see that there’s a lot going on, and even just editing and contracts take a while to happen. 
Part of it is that the book is complicated–time travel is always particularly hard to edit. I also did so much research but I have a terrible memory so I have to keep checking notes–for example, I remember looking at reports from Honolulu in 1884 to figure out the phases of the moon (Full-moon parties were A Thing, before electricity was as widespread as it is today.) If we changed things by even a day, the phase of the moon might be off and that Just Won’t Do. (The copy editors might be happy knowing I already looked at that stuff? I hope so.)
The other thing is that we had a little more time built into the contract–a lot of other books that sold around the time mine did were slated to be published in Fall ’15, but Greenwillow’s fall list was already full by then.
But looking back at the past year, I’m quite happy with the process. After all, the “Ta Da” is where all the magic happens. And I need time to shop for that party dress. 

Year In Review

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So I’m sitting here procrastinating on working on my sequel, so to make myself feel better I’ve decided to write a post. Of course, since my last post was almost eight months ago, there’s some catching up to do.

To be fair, I was busy. For one, I had a baby, which let me just say was a bit of a trip. I’m a parent now. WHOA.

I have nothing wise or insightful to say about this. Just. . . whoa.

And then, not two weeks after my son arrived, I got my edit letter. I did my first round of edits with my baby on my lap.

And that round of edits was magical (and not just because of all the hormones in my blood). Martha at Greenwillow and Sara at HotKey are so incredibly smart, and the edit letter was brilliant and insightful and all good things. In the past few months, I’ve honed and polished the manuscript, the characters growing stronger, the plot clearer, and the writing cleaner.

We’re nearing the final stages of that process, and it makes me a bit sad. Coming from a collaborative background in musical theatre, working with these two brilliant editors has actually been one of my favorite parts of writing this book.  Not like writing from scratch with blank pages that sit there and mock you grumble grumble this *$&#^@ sequel. . . .

Between rounds of edits and cleaning spit-up, I took a trip to Hawaii to see my brother-in-law marry my new sister-in-law. It was a beautiful wedding, and the gods of Old Hawaii blessed them with a brief shower of misty rain and a lovely double rainbow. They blessed me with a baby that didn’t cry on the 11 hour flight.

Anyway as the year (and this post) draw to a close, I’m looking back and not feeling so bad about not having time to update this here blog.