Canmore author Lauren Hawkeye, writing under the pen name Lauren Jameson, has hit the big time with her first mass market release.
Blush, published by NAL, a division of Penguin Books, hit the shelves of bookstores worldwide in places like Chapters, Barnes & Noble, Target and Walmart.
While pleased and excited, Hawkeye is also realistic calling what many would view as the Holy Grail of writing – that mass-market contract – one more step in her career, that at this point, is still just beginning.
“This is just the start. It’s not even the midpoint. Now it is about getting a readership and building a backlist,” Hawkeye said.
The Holy Grail, she added, is bestseller lists like the New York Times or USA Today.
But for the average writer, that chance of that happening is low, she said.
“That’s not going to happen for most people. That is the Holy Grail right there. Not going to happen most likely. Hitting the list once, or twice that would be nice.
“It happens. I’ve got good friends who hit it but it is not a goal to strive towards. You can strive towards promoting your book and getting good sales. It’s not a goal, it would be nice, it’s a dream,” she said.
But for now, Hawkeye is still basking in the glow that she’s reached the milestone of her first mass-market paperback.
“I’m pretty excited. They paid for really good placement, when you walk into chapters its right front and centre, not just stuck on a shelf. It’s on one of those new release tables.”
To date, Hawkeye, who write romance fiction and erotic romance, has five novels under belt and a number of novellas and shorter stories. She signed on with Penguin last August with a contract for two books, Blush, and its sequel, Breathe.
And by January, while on a second honeymoon with her husband, Rob Murray, was sitting next to the pool madly making edits to the 90,000-word Blush racing to meet the expedited deadline.
“We went on a second honeymoon in January but that’s where edits happened so I was sitting by the pool clickity-clackaty,” she said pretending to type on a computer’s keyboard.
She also signed a one-book contract with Penguin for a serialized novel – Surrender to Temptation – that will come together as a full book in April 2014.
“With self publishing now being a big thing, the trends are changing a lot more quickly,” Hawkeye said.
“In the past it would take a couple of years for the trends to turn over but with people self-publishing it accelerates every few months and traditional publishers are trying to keep up with them so they’re not left in the dust.”
Hawkeye has completed Breathe – it’s now in the second round of edits – but the tight timelines and a bout of writer’s block left her scrambling, forcing her to rewrite the first part of Breathe more than once.
“I restarted the first 20,000 words three times. I emailed my editor asking if there was any extra room for me cause it was not working for me,” she said, adding she managed to squeeze out an extra week.
Hawkeye primarily writes contemporary romance fiction, but also writes paranormal romance and the occasional historical romance. But neither paranormal nor historical romance comes as easily as her contemporary stories, she said.
All told, the genre still works for her, she said, as it provides an opportunity to explore real-world issues and challenges.
“Today’s romances can be pretty dark. There are a lot of issues that can be dealt with. It’s not just light and fluffy, billionaires and the Mediterranean. It’s real people,” she said.
In Seduced by the Gladiator, book two of her gladiator series, Hawkeye’s two main characters both experienced sexual abuse. In Blush, meanwhile, her heroine’s backstory initially included the death of her child.
“That was how I wrote it first and it was really cathartic but my editor asked me to change that. For readers, that kind of tragedy makes the reader so desperately sorry for the character that it pulls them out of the story.”
Even though Hawkeye changed her story, she still describes the book as one “of her heart, so I’m very proud of that one.”
