How I Met Desert Breeze

In celebration of Desert Breeze Publishing's 2nd Birthday...the DB authors are doing a huge blogfest. One author a day will be posting the story of how they found Desert Breeze from April 15 - April 30. Commenters will when daily prizes, but that's not all.

*Enter Bob Hope soundtrack*

The commenters from all the days and all the posts will be entered to win a grand prize on May 1st. Diane Craver kicked this off yesterday with me taking the torch today.

So here we go...stay tuned for the daily prize at the end of the post.

How I met Desert Breeze:

I'd been in limbo with Duty and Devotion for months, focusing on publishing my short stories while it went through the never ending submission and querying ride. It was during a search for a place to submit a short story that I spotted Desert Breeze on Duotrope as a featured publisher listing on the search page.

I went to their site and read about how they began. I loved the friendship and passion for books that drove the start up. It called to me. Of course, then I fell in love with the quality of book covers. I don't care what anyone says, the quality and time put into a book cover really is an indication of the quality and time put into selecting and publishing a book.

By that time I was determined to get Duty and Devotion onto the Desert Breeze roster. I sweated over the cover letter, the synopsis, and raked through the manuscript a hundred times. Then I panicked, calmed down, freaked out, lost my nerve, and finally created an email message. From there I sat on the email message for about two weeks, trying to find fault with the wording, went through the cover letter, synopsis and manuscript yet another half dozen times.

In a moment of complete madness, I hit send.

After I regained consciousness I forced myself to start working on my next project while obsessing over the email box. After a couple months I opened my email and found a message from Gail Delaney, Chief Editor and Co-Owner of Desert Breeze. I readied myself for the rejection letter and sat in stunned silence as my brain digested an acceptance letter instead.

I couldn't believe it. I'd gotten in. They'd believed I was good enough to have their name on my book. My book. It was crazy, insane...and TOTALLY FREAKIN' AWESOME!

...and that's how I met and fell in love with Desert Breeze...

Now if you comment on my blog today you'll be able to win my first ever prize giveaway. (Up until now only my guest posters have given prizes away.) Hmmm...what to give away, what to give away? Ah! I know!

If you win today I will send you a collection of things:

5x7 signed poster of my latests free read To the Meadow's Edge


Advanced Readers Copy of my June 2011 debut novel Duty and Devotion

You'll be the first non Desert Breeze to read it!

Now, to continue learning about Desert Breeze AND the chance to win more prizes, visit NIKE CHILEMI's blog, http://crimefictionandfaith.blogspot.com/ tomorrow and learn how she found Desert Breeze.