It’s been nearly a year and a half since LazyDay published my first two books.  Two more have followed, and I signed a contract for a fifth one recently.  Friends and strangers both have congratulated me on having a best seller and there are a fewfrequently asked questions I’d like to answer now in print.

The first is, How do you come up with so many stories?

Hmmmm.How to answer … In short, they’re just there.  I know that sounds cliché, but it’s how my brain works.  I can be eating dinner in a restaurant or walking to my car after running an errand and see someone or something that begins to form into a skeletal plot.  I may play with the idea awhile, until it’s grown large enough to begin writing, or I may just jot down the basis of the idea in a notebook I always carry with me.  I’m rarely NOT thinking of writing my next story or how to continue with the project I’m currently working on.  I can’t help myself.  It’s how my brain works.  Whenever I find a couple of minutes free – it could be while I’m waiting for a friend to join me for lunch, or while I await my turn at the doctor’s office, or even while I’m waiting for sleep to come – who needs to count sheep?  I prefer to plot.  I never go anywhere without a notebook to begin or continue brainstorming.To date, I’ve written between twenty and thirty novels, all romance.  Few are ready to be published yet and will require extensive editing before they are, but ideas are so far, not a problem.

Second:  How long did it take me to write my first book?

Funny story, that.  Would you believe over twenty years?  I began writing when I was still a kid, but I never finished anything.  Writing a book is a hell of a commitment to make, especially when you’re like most people – like me – and write whenever you can fit it in.  I work full time, plus teach a night class at the local university, plus have two kids, a husband in declining health, blah, blah, blah.  After beginning that first novel which I never finished, I pushed the dream aside and got busy with living my life.

But I never forgot the dream.

Whenever people asked me what my greatest goal in life was, the answer always involved writing, getting published.  No, I never forgot the dream, but neither did I do anything about making it a reality until a couple of years ago.  What happened, you ask?  What earth shattering event forced me to work toward making my dreams into reality?  Several things were going on at the time, but really, one stands out as the main catalyst.

In a word … menopause.Early onset menopause at that.

Yes, my friends, it’s true.  I went from being a relaxed, content, early to bed early to rise type person to a stressed out, freaked out night owl.  No matter what I did, I could not seem to sleep at night until well after midnight most of the time.  Rather than just lay there thinking about the job that didn’t satisfy me, my parents and husband who all faced serious health issues, or just how miserable I felt, I decided to use the time to write.  It became my medicine, my hope, and my escape.  In short, it became my coping mechanism.

At the same time, my niece began writing, and I thought, wow … I wish I’d run with it at such an early age.  But hell, better late than never, right?  I started cranking out book after book.  I’d get started on one and just keep on working it until the first draft was finished, and by then, I was ready to begin another story.  Although my life continued to challenge me on a daily basis, I found that living vicariously through my heroines proved therapeutic and even inspiring.

My initial goal was simply to write an entire book, start to finish.  My secondary goal was to submit a manuscript for publication.  Sure, I hoped someone would actually take me up on it, but if nobody ever did, I knew I could be satisfied with knowing that at least I’d tried.  Mostly, I didn’t want to look back on my life and wonder what might have been.  I figured if I did ever manage to get published, it would be icing on the cake.

Damn, was that icing sweet!  When I got the acceptance for both books I’d submitted to LazyDay, I was pleasantly shocked.  One of the books they published was the first of a trilogy, and LazyDay ended up signing the other two shortly after the initial books they published to complete the trilogy.

Once that happened, I decided I really wanted to concentrate on my writing and try to improve.  I’d had no formal training, and I didn’t really know my way around the business.  The same niece I mentioned earlier had also been published by now and wanted to use me as a guinea pig for structuring college level courses in creative writing, which she planned on teaching in the near future.  She was a great teacher.

I learned about head hopping, passive vs. active voice, and the hero’s journey, among many other things.  I’d submit a chapter, and she’d brutally critique it.  I ate it up and asked for more.  She made me a much better writer, so the brutality was much appreciated.  I look back at those first published efforts, and I see such a positive growth between then and now.  I owe her much and plan to dedicate one of my books to her in the future, (the same one she brutally critiqued, of course).

Question number three:  What advice would I give aspiring novelists?

I like this one.  I’m a nurturing person who likes to encourage and help others, so it’s a pleasure to answer.  First of all, if you want to write, then write, for God’s sake.  Don’t wait as long as I did, and don’t wait for menopause!  Now is the perfect time with this new ebook adventure the world has embraced.  All the major publishing houses have added ebooks to their offerings, as well as many new houses who specialize in ebook publishing, and they’re hungry for new authors.  Did you know Amazon sells more ebooks than traditional books?  It’s not just a passing fad, I feel sure.  If ever the time was right to enter into the world of writing, it’s now, now, now!  To borrow Nike’s phrase, JUST DO IT!

If you’re serious enough to put your stories on paper, be brave enough to submit them for publication.  If you can take the attitude I took and consider getting published as icing, that’s great.  That way, there’s no way you can lose.  I was rejected twice by other publishing houses before LazyDay picked me up.  I’ll always hold them in my heart of hearts for taking a chance and giving me a chance to fulfill my fondest life’s goal and dream.

In less than two years, I’ve gone from aspiring, dreaming author to an Amazon best seller, and I’m only getting started.  I still have modest goals, and I continue to reach for them.  Would I like to make a living through my writing?  Damn straight I would, and there’s no reason I can’t continue to work toward that, but in the meantime, I’m thoroughly enjoying the journey.  If I never make it to the New York Times best sellers list, so be it, but no one can take away the fact that I not only reached my goal of finishing an entire book, but I got published – four times and counting!

I have a lot to do yet and a lot to learn.  My niece and favorite editor tells me the people in my books are too nice, they fall in love too soon, and my villains aren’t scary or mean enough.  Can I help it that in my world I like everyone to be nice?  Yes.  I can.  I need more complicated plots and more believable characters and a dozen other things I have to improve on, but you know what?  I rarely head hop anymore, and I nearly always write in active voice, rather than passive now.  I’m growing, and I’m making progress.

Most importantly, I’m have a friggin’ blast doing it!

As our 30’s approached, I heard and watched some of my friends’ underlying panic at the revelation that turning the big 3-0 put them in a place they had either been dreading or that had snuck up on them all together. Either way, the feelings gravitated to the same point. To most, 30 seemed like the beginning of old. Being in your 20’s gave a sense of security, unnoticed until it was almost passed. In your 20’s, you can still be considered a “young adult”, the capability of sowing your wild oats still ripe for the taking. You can still claim that you are finding yourself, finding your way. No rush. No hurry. There’s still time. Being 30 intimates that you should be settled, your days of being “young” are over. When you’re 30 and you get gray hair, you can’t necessarily call it early gray anymore. The wrinkles by your eyes are no longer just tricks of the light, but part of the path of life you are on now, the path right across your face. For me, however, that is not what reaching my 30’s was about. I didn’t feel a sense of panic or worry about my worry lines, which was just going to compound the problem. I don’t know the word for what I felt. I just know that I began to wonder “What do you do when you turn 30 and you’ve done all that you expected to do with your life?” The milestones had been reached. I wanted to marry a wonderful man someday. So I did. I wanted to have at least two children, a boy and a girl would have been perfect. So I did. I wanted someday to have a job that I loved. So I got one. I wanted a nice house. I never expected anything extravagant, just home. So that’s what we got. A truck for my husband, an SUV for me. Oh, I had dreams. Everyone does. I’m not a dancer but I often dreamed of busting loose in perfect rhythm at some function, leaving the crowd in awe. I’m not tone deaf but I’m not American Idol material either. Yet, daydreams allowed me to stand on a stage, cast in the glow of a single spotlight, angelic melodies pouring from my soul as a group of people stood in stunned silence and surprise. Born with a creative mind, words have always come easily to me. And the idea of being a published writer accompanied me to sleep many a night, and woke with me many a morning. How many pretend autographs did I sign? How many hands did I shake? But two college English classes, a children’s literature course, and journals full of story beginnings but no endings, left me no author, no dancer, no singer. By the time I turned 35, I had been married for 15 years. My son was 14, my daughter 9. We had lived in our home for 9 ½ years, had two vehicles almost paid for. I had been running my own business successfully for 10 years. We were settled. And we were happy. And it was good. And then it all changed. A little over two months after I turned 35, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, invasive and non-invasive ductal carcinoma. The comfortable life that I had dared consider complaining about, was turned upside down in the course of a phone call. “We got the pathology report back….and it’s cancer.” Suddenly, everything that was in place and accomplished was unsettled, the path of the rest of our life together unknown. And when nighttime rolled around, it was no longer dreams of dancing and singing that lulled me to sleep, because sleep would not come. My heart was broken, my mind was racing. My only anchor was a notebook, a pen, and the comfort of putting what was inside my mind, what hurt to say out loud, to paper. As surgery and treatments began, those words on paper led me to begin a blog, deepthoughtsbybeck.blogspot.com. Even after the first entry, I held on to it for a couple of days before sharing it with anyone. But when I did, the response and support I received from those reading it lifted me up so high, it lit my path and I knew the journey was not just mine, but also the journey and the battle of those who knew me and loved me. In December, I received a call from one of my best friends, telling me he had pitched my blog to a publisher and soon after I was offered a contract by LazyDay Publishing. My story, my words, were going to be published. Even more amazing was that LazyDay wanted to donate their portion of the profits to a local charity near and dear to my heart, 18 Fore Life. Me and the Ugly C was released in October as an eBook, in December in print. Seeing the cover of my book for the first time was a moment I will never forget. In my car with Kelley on the way home from a check-up, my iPhone dinged and I had an email from Staci at LazyDay. The cover was ready for my approval. And, other than my children, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Such a symbol of everything I had been through, an image that stood for the battle and the victory, my name at the bottom evidence of a dream come true. Just being published and adding the title Author to my name was more than enough for me. But the blessings have not stopped there. Because of the opportunity I was given to allow others to read about my journey, I have received many emails and letters from people all over the country who have read my book and been moved by it in some way. So I suppose I could now say that I have received fan mail. I have spoken with people who with tears in their eyes have told me that, as a breast cancer survivors themselves, Me and the Ugly C described exactly the way they had felt during their own journey but never had the ability to put into words. Always a wallflower and terrified of public speaking, I have recently forced my way out of my shell and embraced this new life of opportunity, agreeing to speaking engagements at the Poplar Bluff Public Library and American Cancer Society events, where I have even signed autographs. Each event makes me a little braver and a little bolder, ready for the next thing that comes my way. And as if all that wasn’t enough, I was blessed enough to watch my book head to the Amazon Top Ten Best Sellers list, alongside the likes of Ellen and Chelsea Handler, even passing up Kris Jenner and unbelievably, Anne Frank The Diary of a Young Girl, going as far as reaching #7 in Kindle women’s biographies and memoirs . I am about to turn 37 years old. I have crow’s feet and laugh lines, hot flashes and mood swings. I’m still married to my husband, now of 17 years. My son will be turning 16 in a matter of weeks, my daughter just turned 11. We still live in the same house, drive the same vehicles and November marked the 12th anniversary as owner of my salon. Those things haven’t changed. But today, as well as a wife, mom and business owner, I can now also introduce myself as Becky Dennington, Breast Cancer Survivor and best-selling author of Me and the Ugly C.

By J.M. Kelley

When my first novel, Drew in Blue, was contracted by Lazy Day Publishing, I remember discussing goals with my ultimate beta-reader/coach/cheerleader/whip cracker, Laurie. I set a decidedly unlofty benchmark for myself. I told Laurie that if I sold twenty books, I’d be a happy author.

Hopefully Staci doesn’t read that admission too closely. I mean, what publisher wants to hear that their author is essentially saying she’ll consider herself a success if she sells just enough to buy a tank of gasoline for the old Ford?

But, I’m a realist. I was a first-time author. A nobody. A no-name. How could I realistically hope to earn millions? Or even thousands? I simply wanted to know that some people read this little story I’d put so much of my time and emotions into throughout its inception.

From the time my novel was released, things went as I expected. I promoted. I did guest blogs. I practically got on my hands and knees to beg people to give Drew a shot. I’m not sure the average reader truly understands what a new author has to go through to get her story out there. It’s hard work, of this I can assure you.

Fast-forward in time, a bit.

I have a day job. It’s blue-collar work, and along with that comes erratic hours. And I was still living in the Dark Ages, only wishing I could own a smart phone with internet access. So, one day, I get home from work—after a few days of hectic scheduling. I hadn’t checked my email and decided I’d catch up before collapsing in my bed for the night. Languishing deep in the inbox was an email from Staci, in which she was letting me know that they were experimenting to give Drew’s sales a little kick-start…by offering the download for free for KDP members. In addition, the regular price for non-KDP members was also marked free.

Huh? How is that going to nudge sales? I wondered. But Drew had been out for a while, and it certainly couldn’t hurt to do a little experimentation. Additionally, there was a lot of buzz about the KDP program and I was genuinely curious about how it benefited authors. Now, I had a front row seat to witness the end results.

I didn’t expect much—a bit of a surge in download numbers, nothing more. Then…my inbox had its own upswing in activity, mostly because of emails from Staci, giving me updates on downloads.

At first, I was pleasantly surprised by the positive numbers. People were reading Drew…a lot of people. Good buzz is just as valuable as a royalty check, after. Then things started to get…wild.

During The Free Spree, the downloads were astronomical! Thousands, and I mean thousands of downloads. I was in the top five free reads lists in the romance and contemporary romance categories. Staci was excited. I was floored. And then the experiment went into Phase II.

Drew was available through KDP, still, but the standard download was no longer free. My expectation at this point? My Amazon rank falling through the floor.

That…didn’t happen.

Because of Staci’s handiwork, Drew got some visibility. He started climbing the charts. He was my Little Engine That Could. I could imagine Drew saying, “I think I can, I think I can, I freaking think I CAN!”

I kept waiting for the level-off. It didn’t come. And while part of my mind habitually did little calculations of my earnings as the Amazon ranks updated, the truly fun part of the experience kicked in. Facebook friends started watching. People would take screencaps of my ranking when they knew I was working. Wall posts marked milestones for me to look at when I got home from the job. The cheering section of friends got louder and louder as Drew…kept…on…climbing…the…charts.

And then it happened. Amazon teased me with the occasional fall in rank, and then a sudden jolt. I think I was ranked at 101 overall, and then I fell to the 120s. I thought it was over. Until suddenly, and with a joyous shout, I realized my little book, my Drew in Blue had broken the Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store list!

In what genre, you may ask? Well, Drew did a spectacular job in the romance and contemporary romance categories. But the Top 100 rank? That was not by genre. That was overall in the Kindle Store.

I did it! Drew did it!

Did I reach the Number One spot? No. And I had no hope of doing so. Why?

Problem One: Stephen King. See, even I downloaded a Stephen King book around that time, so I accidentally gave my competition a push ahead. Imagine what I was up against, considering the scores of King fans out there. I can’t begrudge the man that.

Problem Two: The Bible.

It’s a strange, strange day when you realize your brick wall is built by The Lord. I mean, who takes on God and wins?

Well, despite that holy hiccup, I still won. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I could reach such heights. Or gain so many readers. Or even check in on my Amazon page to find so many wonderful reviews from people I’ve never met in my life. Or have the opportunity to think, what kind of a vacation do I want to take with that forthcoming royalty check?

What a fun ride it was. And the view somewhat near the top is awfully pretty. Someday soon, I hope I’ll be raising my flag on the precipice of the Top 100. Until then, I will savor the thrilling ride Drew and I had, cruising up the charts at breakneck speed.

By Liz Borino

One afternoon as I sat in front of my computer diligently doing schoolwork, editing, writing one of the two books I owe to LazyDay, on Facebook, I received a notification of an email from Staci. Generally speaking, this makes me happy as I so rarely receive bad news from her. I dropped my very important work to read that following the success of other authors, Lazy Day decided to offer Expectations, the first book in my Taylor Twins series, for free on Amazon through KDP. Hmm… I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, honestly. I worked hard on those books and giving them away for free felt like I was undercutting the value. Don’t worry, I didn’t let my ego get in the way.

I waited anxiously for Amazon to change the price to $0.00. By anxiously, I mean I checked every hour, jeez, alright, ten minutes. When it finally switched, I hit social media running. My friends and fans posted in groups I wasn’t in and retweeted links whenever I posted them. I may have been more than a little annoying. Everyone I knew got PMs begging to help. Then it was time to wait. I should mention that’s one thing I don’t do well. I like to engage with things I can control. But a public response? Totally out of my hands.

Not as if I checked very often, however, from what I heard from friends who did, the public responded rather well. Expectations made it into the top 1,000 free in Kindle Store within a few hours of being live and it only dropped from there, eventually reaching 220. I was so excited, I could barely sit still. The results were amazing, yes, but the best came after the promotion ended. Expectations was higher in the rankings than it had been in a year.

Of course I jumped at the chance for What Money Can’t Buy and Gifts from the Past, my second and third books in the series to be featured in KDP. Guess what? They out-performed Expectations. What Money Can’t Buy reached #2 on Gay and Lesbian fiction. The best I’ve ever done, but I had to know who was number one. Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Grey. I was incredulous, angry even. Yes, I understand Oscar Wilde is a world famous author. The book, though, had nothing to do with the LGBT community. Nothing. So, I kicked up my promotion. Unfortunately, What Money Can’t Buy never took the #1 spot. That honor would fall to Gifts from the Past three weeks later.

Everyone who knew me got a phone call that Friday night. “I’m number one! Gifts from the Past beat Oscar Wilde!” And really, what more could a young woman from small town Pennsylvania ask for? Fame…fortune…never mind…this is enough for now.

By Melissa Ecker

The road to Bestsellerville started with an email from my publisher, LazyDay Publishing. They proposed putting Deep in the Heat of Texas, an erotic anthology co-written by myself and the very talented Amy le Blanc and Alta Hensley, into the Kindle Prime Program on Amazon. I have to admit, I wasn’t super excited about it but, hey, they know this end of the business. I just write dirty words.

Anyway, fast forward to the day it went free. Out of curiosity, I checked Amazon to find it quickly climbing the free bestseller lists. So started an Amazon stalk-a-thon where Amy and I intermittently Twitter messaged each other with progress reports. Let me tell you about Amy. She is the most wickedly dirty writer I know. We came up with some filthy mojo catch phrases. As silly as it was, whenever we tweeted these horribly inappropriate anecdotes, our book climbed quicker up the charts.

Now, neither of us slept for probably four days. Well, that’s an exaggeration but when we’re messaging each other at 3:00 a.m. to report that we moved up two spots on the bestseller list…yeah, you get the picture. Amazon updates their lists approximately every hour and, between the two of us, we saw every update over those four days.

I also annoyed my very tolerant critique partner with the same updates via iMessage or email and sometimes both at the same time depending on my level of excitement coupled with how sleep deprived I was at the moment. I even sent her screen shots of where the book was on the list and who was above and below me. God bless her for her patience and support of my nonstop squeeing.

Amy and I virtually high-fived when Deep in the Heat of Texas occupied the number one spot. What a ride. There were in excess of 19,000 free downloads that day. My head spun. I was sure once our title dropped off the free list that would be all she wrote.

Low and behold, when it was back for sale the following day, I watched it climb the other side of the bestseller list, the paid side. Amy and I kept in close communication and we both cried when we bypassed the likes of Sandra Brown, Cynthia Eden and Jane Austen to take the number one spots on both the genre fiction anthology and romance anthology lists. Wow. Just wow. Now we were bestselling authors.

Being able to take a vacation courtesy of royalties is fabulous but that’s not where the real satisfaction lies. What brought tears to my eyes and touched me most during this journey was the fact that so many people might be reading my work and hopefully enjoying it. Anyone who truly loves this craft knows we don’t do it for the money or the fame. We do it because we love it, because it’s what makes our hearts race and our blood rush. We write because we simply have to.

A big thank you goes out to Alta and Amy for helping me bring this crazy story idea to fruition and to my publisher, LazyDay Publishing, for having faith in us when we proposed this project and for all their hard work in pushing us into Bestsellerville!