Liar Society Blog Tour

Please give a warm welcome to Lisa and Laura Roecker, two spectacular authors of the young adult novel, THE LIAR SOCIETY.

Check out my review of THE LIAR SOCIETY here.

Today they're here to inform all you wonderful blog readers of the grueling process they went through in order to get published, and also of a great giveaway you're definitely going to want to enter.  For all you aspiring authors out there, I hope their story inspires you to never give up on your dream :)

Connect with Lisa and Laura:
 Blog | Twitter | Goodreads

Buy THE LIAR SOCIETY:
Amazon ~ B&N ~ Borders ~ Book Depot

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LILA ON WRITING

Our writing career began one fateful night...er morning...in July of 2008. Lisa was bored at work and Laura was on maternity leave and both were exploring other options.

Lisa: Let's open up a boutique.
 
Laura: Ooh, good idea. We can set our own hours, bring the kids with us, it will be so. much. fun.

Lisa: Seriously! Oh, but what about money? Ouch. 

Laura: What about a movie theater? We could open one up and offer built-in childcare so moms can see movies during the day. It'll be a huge hit. (Laura's still ashamed of the fact that she actually did the following Google search: real estate, movie theaters, for sale, Ohio. Yep) 

Lisa: Yes! But, um, movie theaters are probably expensive to build. 

Laura: I've always wanted to write a book. Let's write a book together! I bet it's easy to get published. (Famous. Last. Words.)

Lisa: YES! I have the best idea ever. We can re-write the classics. I mean, no one's ever done that! (Famous. Last. Words.) I'll begin outlining stat.

And so it began. Our writing process then was exactly the same as our writing process now. Lisa writes the first chapter, Laura edits and writes the next chapter and sends it back to Lisa who continues until we're finished. If you own the document, you can change the document. No questions asked (although whenever we get the document back, we both scramble to past chapters and change BACK, but that's neither here nor there). 

A month later we had our first draft of The North Shore, which we sent around to some fabulous beta readers (ie friends and family) who all said they adored it (well, except for our dad who said it wasn't his cup of tea. I guess we should have known). But no, we figured we were golden! We wrote a kick-ass query for a less than kick-ass book, earned a ton of requests, but then... Re-Jec-Tion. 1,902,607,341 rejections to be exact.

Okay, fine, we're exaggerating, but apparently we were not golden. So, what did we learn? Some very kind agents who saw a glimmer of something-something in our writing, provided some super-helpful feedback and we worked very hard to apply it. Just not to that particular book. That particular book needed to die. Instead, we started fresh, with a new idea and we *gasp* found beta readers who were not our family! Best advice ever. Find beta readers who WRITE. 

When we queried with The Liar Society, then titled Finding Grace, we earned three offers of representation within a week! Many conversations later, we decided to go with Catherine Drayton, whose vision for the series most closely resembled our own.

And here we are.

Well... not exactly. Finding Grace turned into The Haunting of Pemberly Brown after editing for Catherine. And then editing some more. And more. And more and more and more. A lot of editors saw a little something-something, but only one saw the whole shebang. Dan Ehrenhaft acquired the book for Sourcebooks Fire, Sourcebooks' new YA line, and the rest is history. But let's just say there was a whole lot of editing involved in that history, including another change of title. Dan said The Haunting of Pemberly Brown sounded like a Jane Austen-style historical (not quite what we were going for) so The Liar Society was born. And then we edited for Kelly Barrales-Saylor and Leah Hultenschmidt and that's that.

So, what have we really learned?

1) Never trust friends and family as beta readers. They're just impressed you can write something longer than a term paper.

2) Connect with other writers. They need you just as much as you need them! Not only to read your crappy first drafts, but to support you along the way. Crying in your Cheerios is nothing to crying over Skype.

3) Don't be afraid to accept feedback. For better or worse, we're never completely married to our writing. It's always fluid and changing and we're not afraid to admit when something isn't working because usually, deep down, we knew it in the first place.

AND, in closing, our most important word of advice: NEVER TAKE YOURSELF TOO SERIOUSLY. Have fun with all of this, because it's fun, right?! If we're ever stressed or upset or overwhelmed or unhappy, we shut our computers and distance ourselves from the writing world. Sure enough, we always come back. Because now we understand what it means to actually enjoy our job. Granted, we still have a hard time calling what we do a job, but we always try to remember to appreciate every second of it. To quote Laura's wedding song and end on an EXTRA cheesy note, these are the days!

PS: We have a secret. Click here, hit the Pemberly Brown Plaque. The password is PINK.

And if you want to enter The Liar Society Blog Tour of Awesome contest, and really, who wouldn't want to enter!?! There's a $100 Amazon gift card up for grabs! Just click here and enter the super secret password, PINK, for an entry. Remember you can enter one time for each stop on our blog tour, so be sure to click here and see where else we're visiting this month to maximize your chances of winning.

Audi, Vide, Tace,

L&L

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Thanks for stopping by ladies!  I think I need to take your advice to heart.

As you can see with this vibrant banner, you can win a $100 Amazon gift card.  Just be sure to click on the image, which will direct you to Lisa and Laura's blog so you can learn more about this event.  (If the picture link is giving you hassle, here's a text link for you).