I was going to try and wait until Friday to post this (hence the whole TLIF thing, yanno – Thank Loki It’s Friday), but I can’t. I have to share now, and we’ll just pretend it’s not Tuesday (which is one of my favorite things to do – pretend it’s not Tuesday).

Here’s the short version of this post – short for me anyway.

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Are you ready for it?

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I SOLD MY BOOK!

WOOT! 😀 Liquid Silver Books, under the name Allyson Lindt!

YAY!

Allyson will become a regular contributor to this blog soon, and if you’d like to follow her on Twitter (@AllysonLindt, we would super-duper love it (it’s so weird to talk about myself as two people…that will take some getting used to)

You can stop reading here, unless you’d like the longer story (though still far shorter than it is in my head). That’s all below 😀

Hrm…where to start…

A little less than two years ago, I made my very first ever short story sale. I made actual money, the website who purchased the story said in their submission guidelines “If you don’t hear from us in a month, it’s a no” and emailed me six days later to buy my story.

Around the same time (give or take six months), I started this blog. Once I finally got around to using it, I would occasionally let one of my characters guest post. Scott McAllister is my favorite. Unfortunately you won’t find any of his posts up right now because apparently ‘guest post’ is a massive trigger for certain types of spam, so I’ve reverted them all to draft.

They’ll probably go back up in the next month or so, because CONFLICT OF INTEREST is Scott’s story.

Anyway. About two weeks ago, I made a moderately low-key and unceremonious return to blogging. I won’t link to the post because it’s less than five posts down, and because I can give you the short version.

Basically, I wrote a handful of books last year, and toward the end of the year writing became this all-consuming thing that kept me from blogging or doing much else of anything (except gaming. I still always manage to find time for the game).

About three weeks ago, right before Christmas, I finished revisions on one of my projects. I had already decided I wanted to query epublishers directly with this story. I’d done my research, I had my list, and right after Christmas, I started sending out queries.

And I told myself to be prepared to wait. I’ve been querying for a couple of years, I know these things take time. So. Much. Time.

Fast forward to three days after I sent out my few queries (I was going to say ‘biggest batch’ but that’s deceptive because I was very selective about the publishers I queried, and that made for a very small list). It was 5:10 am, I had just woken up, and one of the first things I did was check my email.

Because I’m an addict. A hard core email addict.

There was a response to one of my queries. And on a normal day my gut would have clenched, I would have prepped myself for the rejection, and I would have taken a few deep breaths before I read it.

I was not nearly awake enough for that process, so I said “oh, hey, email” *click*.

Through bleary eyes I read a kind note thanking me for trusting them with my submission, and more text, and more kind words about how they want to bring the highest quality romance to their readers…

And then…”We loved your story, and I’m delighted to offer you a contract for publication.”

*blink* *blink*

*rub eyes*

What? And that was me for the next hour. I went and made myself some coffee, read the email a few more times, and it finally sank in. OHMYALLTHATISMIGHTYWITHLOKIANDASGARD Someone wants to publish my novel!

I don’t have pretty pictures of me signing the contract, because it was all so seamless and digital, and I don’t have any stories of a call, and it’s all still feeling surreal, but…Wow.

Everyone at Liquid Silver Books has been fantastic to work with already. Polite, professional, friendly, responsive – it’s so rare to find all of those qualities in one place and the part of me that works in a cubicle is in love with it.

Over the next few weeks and months I’ll post details as I have them. Cover, publication date, blog tours, all that amazing stuff.

And I’m still perma-grinning, even more than a week later. I’m so amazed and happy and thrilled that this is happening. I’m just…

YAY! 😀