I announced Ava Jae's original success story in February. I'm happy to share this exciting update with you!
Sometime last year, Team Fury member extraordinaire Lady Lioness
noticed some promising entries on one of Authoress’s Secret Agent
contests and told agent of awesome Louise Fury about them. (Can you tell I love
my agent and her team? Anyway). They then e-mailed Authoress and asked about
the entries, and Authoress asked if Louise would be willing to be a secret
agent for one of her blog contests. Louise agreed to do it with another agent,
so she and Emily Keyes lined up to be October Secret
Agents.
Meanwhile, I’d been querying my newest Sci-Fi
novel, then titled SLAVE & SIRA for about a month when, on October 7, 2013,
the entry period for Miss Snark’s First Victim’s October Secret
Agent contest opened up. I figured it was worth a try, entered, and crossed my
fingers.
After some confusion I detailed in my last MSFV happy post, on October
14th Louise picked my entry as a runner up, requesting my query and the first
three chapters. Which then led to a request of the first fifty pages, which led
to a request of the full, which led to a super happy e-mail about setting up a
phone call, and a ridiculously exciting phone call in which she offered
representation!
On February 2, 2014 I officially announced that I’d
signed with Louise and became part of Team Fury! YAY!
And thus began several months of editing and brainstorming new
titles (because apparently titles with made up words aren’t
that popular or something? Who would’ve guessed, right? *ehem*). We went on
submission in June and after four-ish months of fretting, and writing, and
waiting, and incessantly checking e-mails…
On October 7, 2014 (EXACTLY a year after I entered the Secret
Agent contest!) I accepted an offer of hardcover publication from Sky Pony
Press! Sky Pony is the YA imprint of Skyhorse and their website is here.
The PM announcement says this:
"Ava Jae's debut BEYOND THE RED, in which a feud on a
distant, crimson planet with established nanite technology creates a violent
uprising that threatens the reign of a teenage queen and forces her to turn to
her rebel half-blood bodyguard for help, before the planet's human population
is destroyed at the hands of her power-hungry twin brother, to Nicole Frail at
Sky Pony Press, in a nice deal, for publication in early 2016, by Louise Fury
at The Bent Agency …”
I’m completely elated and seriously
cannot wait to share BEYOND THE RED with you guys, which is currently slated
for release in hardcover/e-book in March 2016! You can add BEYOND THE RED to
your Goodreads shelf right here.
And to think—it all started with a random lottery
drawing right here on this blog.
Thank you so much, Authoress! My dream is coming true and your
awesome blog was the catalyst. :)
