Maya Reynolds
Welcome, Maya.
Please start off by telling us about yourself; where you were born, where you are now.
I was born in New York City, but my family moved to St. Petersburg, FL when I
was 12 so I usually say I grew up in Florida. I left St. Pete after I graduated
from college, looking for adventure. Settled in Texas and now live in a small
town outside of Dallas.
What is Passionate Ink and how were you affiliated with it?
Passionate Ink is the RWA special interest chapter for erotic romance. Years
ago I was stuck in a hotel on business overnight and picked up Robin Schone’s
THE LADY’S TUTOR from a newsstand. It was historical romance and the first
erotic romance I’d ever read. It blew me away. I started hunting for more
books like it.
Like many other writers, I decided to write what I loved. While looking for an
erotic romance writers’ group, I ran into Sylvia Day and Shelley Bradley
online. They wanted to start a writers’ group. I helped to found the Erotic
Romance Writers, which—after a lot of hard work and negotiation with RWA—became
Passionate Ink. I was PI’s first membership chair. I can still remember RWA’s
shock when we applied for chapter status. They were accustomed to new chapters
with 25 to 50 members. We had over 300.
What kind of jobs did you have before you began writing? Were any “strange”?
Probably the strangest came as the result of my job as a social worker in the
Psychiatric Emergency Room at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. Because of my work
there, I was invited to join Dallas County’s first mobile psychiatric crisis
team. Five nights a week from 6:00 PM to 2:00 AM, my partner and I would go
wherever our dispatcher sent us. We received calls from the Dallas Police,
local psychiatrists, the VA Hospital, and from suicidal people or their worried
families. We interviewed people in jail, in trailers, under bridges, in nursing
homes and, once, in a box in an open field. It was challenging, rewarding and
hugely interesting work … which gave me lots of material for my writing.
Is there anything about your life that would surprise most people?
There’s a scary scene in BAD GIRL where my heroine Sandy is confronted by two
thugs in the south Dallas projects. The scene is based on an incident that
actually happened to me back when I was doing a neighborhood survey for my
Master’s degree.
Please tell us about the stories you write.
My first two novels were contemporary erotic romances. Here’s the pitch for BAD
GIRL which was published in 2007: Shy social worker Sandy Davis has been spying
on her neighbors across the street from her Uptown balcony. It seemed like
harmless fun until the night she received a phone call from an anonymous
stranger telling her, "You've been a bad girl." Now Sandy must decide whether to
give in to his demands, or run the risk of being exposed as a voyeur.
BAD BOY was published in 2009. My editor Tracy Bernstein had asked me to write
the story of Sandy’s best friend from BAD GIRL. Here’s the cover copy: As the
owner and editor-in-chief of Heat, Dallas' hottest new e-zine, Leah Reece will
do anything to get her story, even venture into the shady underworld of 69, an
erotic club which caters to the needs of those with enough money to get anything
they want. Leah expected to get her scoop and run, but didn't count on getting
sidetracked by a sinful encounter with a dark and sultry bad boy.
Quin Perez is a bodyguard at 69. He can't afford to lose his concentration for a
second, but he can't help lusting after the sexy editor who stumbles across his
path. Now Quin is asking Leah questions she doesn't want to answer—and making
her do things she never dared.
What are some of the ups and downs you encountered before becoming published?
I had two major obstacles to overcome: my own lack of discipline and a complete
lack of knowledge about the publishing industry.
I’d written and sold short stories to the “True” magazines for years because I
lacked the discipline to keep my butt in a chair long enough to write a novel.
I finally overcame my “disability” by writing at the same time in the same place
every weekday. I gave myself a weekly page goal. If I didn’t meet the goal by
Friday, I had to give up any planned activities over the weekend in order to
make my page goal. That seriously focused me. <G>
I finished my first novel in the fall of 2003. I spent the next two years
continuing to write, getting critiques, studying the industry and learning from
the published members at RWA and MWA. In mid-2005, I started querying agents
and signed with Jacky Sach of BookEnds in January, 2006. By August, we had a
signed contract with NAL, a division of Penguin.
What do you think is the key to a memorable romantic story?
For me, it’s how the relationship changes the lovers. You have two people, each
following their individual trajectories in life. They meet and the impact sends
them off their original paths and onto a new path altogether. I want to see how
they change each other, how they grow.
Where do you get your story ideas?
Everywhere. Stories on NPR, news stories on the Internet, conversations with my
family. The real problem for me is to focus on one and not flit around. I keep
a small metal box on my desk with blank 3”x5” cards. Whenever I get a story
idea, I scribble it down and stick it in the box so I can continue with my W-I-P
uninterrupted by the new idea’s siren call.
What challenges do you face in your writing endeavors?
My biggest challenge is the medical insurance issue. As long as the cost of my
individual insurance plan stayed below the monthly payment on my car, I worked
part-time from home and wrote. When the monthly insurance cost escalated to
nearly match the cost of my mortgage, I returned to work full-time.
I’m a management analyst for a large university in Dallas. I love both my jobs,
but balancing two full-time jobs with any kind of a life is tough. I recently
turned down a suggested promotion at the university because I knew it would
negatively impact my writing.
Do you believe a writer should follow the current market trend in order to make
a sale?
My answer is a little different today than it would have been five years ago
when I was first contracted.
Because in the print industry it takes 12 to 18 months to release a book, by the
time you’ve recognized a trend and written a novel, the trend will probably have
peaked already.
However, with the advent of online publishing, it’s possible to follow a trend
because the time from contract to release can be half the time of print
publishing.
Having said that, I would encourage a writer to think about two things:
(1) Write what you love to read because you’ll be more committed to the project;
and (2) think ahead of the latest trend.
As an example, remember when Chick Lit was the hottest thing around? Chick Lit
never disappeared. It grew up and away from a concentration on shoes and
shopping. It morphed into the voice of the kick-ass heroine now appearing in
paranormal novels. At the same time, the ever-popular vampire hero also morphed
into all the different paranormal characters we have out there today.
The Harry Potter books of the late ‘90s were the precursors of the current YA
paranormal explosion as those readers grew into their teen years. TWILIGHT came
along right as those little girls who loved Harry Potter were ready to read a
romance.
Some well-established authors have voiced their dissension about the e-book
revolution. What is your take on this booming industry?
Change is tough and scary, especially for anyone who has worked long and hard to
become successful. I don’t blame well-established authors for being wary of the
digital revolution; I’d be, too.
The ironic thing is that the well-established author stands to benefit the most
from the e-book revolution.
This is not about two different mediums—physical and digital. It’s about a
changing economic model. For the first time in 500 years, the owners of means
of production (the print publishing houses) no longer call all the shots. For
the first time, it’s possible for an author with a following to go outside the
system established by the New York publishing houses (I’m not including the
vanity presses as part of the equation). This gives an established author
options she has not had before.
What direction to you think the publishing industry will take? Why do you think
that?
Since the ‘70s, publishing has been all about centralization. We talk about the
Big Five, the Big Six, sometimes, the Big Seven publishing houses. This
centralization began when mega media corporations bought up most of the smaller
houses. The centralization movement also extended into the book-selling
industry where mega-chains like B&N and Borders put pressure on the independent
bookstores, driving many of them out of business.
I believe two advances: digitization and print-on-demand (POD) technology will
turn the tide back in the direction of decentralization.
Think about what digitization and POD technology mean. Now a publisher doesn’t
need to risk printing, warehousing and shipping a large book run. With a
digital file and print-on-demand, the publisher can print small runs or even
wait until an order is received (and paid for) to print individual copies of a
book.
This new technology leads to a lot of new consequences, but I’ll mention the
three that are likely to be of most interest to your writers: (1) It lowers the
entry cost for a new publisher to get into the game; (2) It also makes it less
risky for a publisher to take a chance on a new author; and (3) It creates
greater competition among publishers to sign on established authors with
ready-made audiences.
Of course, this also creates new dangers for the industry, too.
What do you mean?
Remember what Aristotle said: “Nature abhors a vacuum.” Until the new model
shakes out, there will be inexperienced new publishers who fail and go out of
business, scammers who try to make a quick buck by promoting “self-publishing;”
and the potential that a couple of large entities will try to monopolize the
market.
Amazon is an amazing success, but it worries me. It has the potential to become
a single large entity for good or bad in publishing. I always think of
Spiderman’s paraphrase of John Kennedy’s paraphrase of Luke 12:48 “With great
power comes great responsibility.”
What is the best advice you've received in your career?
Never give up, Never Give Up, NEVER GIVE UP.
How many manuscripts did you submit before you were offered a contract, and have
any of those rejected stories been published since?
My first manuscript was the book of my heart. It was a contemporary reworking
of the legends of the Greek gods and goddesses, which I completed in 2003. I
sent it to only one publisher because I was convinced they’d leap to publish it.
I was stunned when they rejected it. My second manuscript was a mystery set in
Dallas that I never completed. My third manuscript won two contests in 2005 and
was requested by both Chrissy Brashear for her not-yet-opened Samhain and by
Berkley. I explained to Chrissy that I wanted to send it to Berkley. She was
very nice about it, and then Berkley turned it down. The fourth manuscript was
a novella that became BAD GIRL.
I’ve looked at the previous manuscripts, but they’d require too much work to
make them salable.
Have any of your titles been translated into other languages?
One of the reasons Jacky suggested going with Penguin was because of their huge
foreign rights division. She was right. My books have sold well overseas,
especially in Latin countries. In fact, my editor sent me a copy of the Spanish
edition of BAD BOY published by Planeta in Barcelona. The cover was much darker
and edgier than the U.S. edition.
Some authors live and die by reviews. How do you deal with reviews, good or bad?
Fortunately I haven’t had many bad reviews, which makes it easier to respond to
this question. Whenever I receive word of a review, I send a “thank you” to the
reviewer—no matter what they said. With the first book, I obsessed over every
review. The second book was much less stressful.
What's next for you?
I’m working on a paranormal romance set in a future world following the
Apocalypse. It’s been fun to work on something so different. The challenge has
been to see if I can expand the idea into a trilogy.
Do you give talks to writers’ groups? What are your favorite topics?
Yes, usually about four times a year—once a quarter. More than that and my
writing suffers. My most recent talk was for the Saguaro chapter of RWA in
Tucson in October.
I love to talk about the writing industry. I believe that writers need to
understand how the industry works and what challenges the industry currently
faces. If you know ahead of time what an agent or an editor wants, your chances
of being published improve dramatically.
Where can readers find you?
I have accounts on Facebook and Twitter, but my main presence is at my blog:
http://www.mayareynoldswriter.blogspot.com
Your parting shot—
Early on, I read a quote from writer Joe Konrath. He said that a writer needs
four things to succeed: talent, craft, perseverance and luck. I would add to
that a thick skin. Keep learning, keep writing, and never, ever give up.
Thank you, Maya.