Book Publishing Secrets with Gin Price, Author of 'On Edge'

Name: GinPrice

Book Title: On Edge: A Freerunner Mystery

Genre: Young Adult

Publisher: Poisoned Pencil Press

Thank you for your time in answering our questions about getting published.  Let’s begin by having you explain to us why you decided to become an author and pen this book?

Gin Price: For most of my life I’ve been a dreamer, living in a fantasy world. I wrote before I even started reading.

Is this your first book?

Gin Price: This is my first published Young Adult book. I’ve written a few other books in different genres.

With this particular book, how did you publish – traditional, small press, Indie, etc. – and why did you choose this method?

Gin Price: This is a traditionally published book. And I’ll admit that I always wanted to be traditionally published. I have self published a novel and a few novella’s previously, though. But there’s a sense of validation when a publishing house puts their faith in you and says, “we want more people to see this book”. Okay, maybe it’s more like “we wanna make money getting more people to see this book”, but I like my rose-colored glasses.

Can you tell us a little about your publishing journey?  The pros and cons?

Gin Price: Sure! I love talking. J But I’ll keep it brief. The biggest pro is that I landed an agent who really liked my book. She liked that it was a fresh take on a Shakespearean plot. She liked that it had parkour and graffiti in it and that it dealt with some very real issues of inner city living.

The biggest “con” was that none of the editors we were submitting to knew what parkour/freerunning was. Also, the street voice that I grew up in and around was lost on some who couldn’t relate.

I received a lot of “no thanks” replies. Or “I liked it…but”. It was very hard not to get discouraged after a year.

Then Ellen Larson at Poisoned Pencil Press read and loved the book and made an offer. I can’t explain how “pro” that feels.

What lessons do you feel you learned about your particular publishing journey and about the publishing industry as a whole?

Gin Price: I learned many things. One of the most important is that it is very easy to get discouraged.

I can honestly say I’d given up hope on this novel. With all the rejection letters, I clearly thought this book just wasn’t going to see a retail shelf anywhere. I know now that you have to start submitting and move on to the next novel. Not easy to do, but ya gotta! When you put all your hopes and dreams into a book, give it a kiss and send it down the publishing river, it is very easy to believe when all the bad omens come in that it sunk. You spend a good portion of your time fretting over the unknown. Why…why…WHY?

We gotta stop asking that. It could be something as simple as that a particular editor had an ex whose street name was Edge so…screw that book. Silly but true. Editors are people, they sometimes don’t see the potential in front of them.

I think anyone who births anything from their creativity has this wait and see, hold their breath, mentality that has to be actively fought off. If I had to do it all over again, I would’ve kept on writing the next novel, not letting worry that I wasn’t good enough stop me. If I’d done that, I wouldn’t be under time pressure now. J

Would you recommend this method of publishing to other authors?

Gin Price: Of course. But only to those who are looking to entertain the masses. I think for niche books, self-publishing is the way to go. Not many houses will shell out a bunch of money for a small percentage of the population, but if you write it, chances are there is someone out there who is going to want to read it. Why not let them?

What’s the best advice you can give to aspiring authors?

Gin Price: Be open to joining writing organizations. Be open to attending book signings, conferences, talks. Be open to criticism. Be open to trends and even more open to avoiding them. Just be open…because nothing exciting can happen if there’s no place for it to enter.