Happy Friday! Today, I have the privilege of hosting USA Today Best-selling Author Annette Dashofy, and saying “I told you so.” For years I’ve been asking, “What’s going on with your racetrack story?” She finally answered my question. Please welcome Annette Dashofy to Help From my Friends Friday ~ Donnell
Out of the Mothballs
by Annette Dashofy
Author Annette Dashofy
Most published authors have one or two (or three or…) manuscripts stuffed away in drawers or in a computer file. Manuscripts that never made the cut. Maybe they didn’t entice an agent. Maybe no publisher wanted to take a chance on them. Maybe we simply got sick of endlessly tweaking them in the attempt to find a home for the story.
Possibly, all of the above applies.
For me, I had three abandoned manuscripts. Now I have two.
I originally wrote Death by Equine in 2005. It earned me my first agent in 2006. But that’s as far as it made it. I drafted a second in what was supposed to be a series, but since the first one didn’t sell, the second never went beyond the first-draft phase. By 2008, my agent and I had parted company. I’d written the first in another series (Circle of Influence, Henery Press 2014) and was focusing on it, having given up on the racetrack mystery. Then another agent reached out to me about that earlier novel. With her guidance, I dug out Death by Equine and did a total rewrite. Once again, it didn’t find a publisher.
At that point, I had a long conversation with my friend, Hank Phillippi Ryan, as I drove her from a local book signing to the airport. Which manuscript should I query? Circle of Influence or Death by Equine, which had just undergone that major rewrite? In response, she asked me a different question: Where does your passion lie?
The answer at that time was simple. I’d worked so long and hard on the racetrack mystery that I’d polished the shine off it. The new manuscript, new series, was the one sparking my passion.
In 2013, I signed a publishing contract for Circle of Influence and the next two books of what has become my long-running Zoe Chambers mystery series.
Thanks, Hank!
Along came 2020. My tenth book came out in June. It was the last of my contract. In theory, it was probably the last of the series (or so I thought at the time). I was floundering, as many of us were last year. While I was figuring out what to do next, I decided to drag that old racetrack mystery out of the mothballs and reread it.
With several years of distance between polishing the shine off it and now reading it with fresh eyes, I decided…it wasn’t half bad.
I still had an option book on my contract, so I offered it to my publisher to fulfill my obligation. They turned it down. So I decided to indie publish it.
I ran it through my critique group. I had it professionally edited and paid a cover artist to create the image I had inside my brain. I talked to other indie-published author friends about formatting, pricing, and a gazillion other things I’d never dealt with before.
In the meantime, I signed with a new agent, who promptly got me a new publishing contract with Level Best Books to continue the Zoe Chambers series. But the next one doesn’t release until May of 2022.
Two years between releases only bolstered my determination to DO THIS.
On May 11, I released Death by Equine to the world. I held my breath, as I always do, until the first reviews came in. What if spending all that money on an editor and cover artist was a financial folly? What if readers hated something that did not feature Zoe and Pete? What if, what if, what if…
I needn’t have worried. The sales have been good (better than I expected, not as good as I’d hoped, but that’s par). So have reviews. I’ve been asked about another book in this series. Alas, that second book, still untouched from its first-draft status, is no longer relevant in the world today. It will stay in the mothballs and deservedly so. However, I may pull a couple threads from it and write a short story or two. Maybe a novella.
One thing this experience of pulling a manuscript out of the mothballs and indie publishing has taught me is anything is possible.
About the Book:
Veterinarian Jessie Cameron agrees to fill in for her mentor, Doc Lewis, at Riverview Racetrack so he can take a long-overdue vacation. When he’s tragically killed by one of his equine patients the night before he’s supposed to leave, Jessie quickly suspects the death is anything but accidental. Her search for the truth is thwarted by everyone from well-meaning friends to the police, including her soon-to-be-ex-husband. Undaunted, she discovers layers of illegal activities and deceit being perpetrated by the man she thought of as a father figure, creating a growing list of suspects with reason to want Doc dead. Too late, she realizes that her dogged quest for the truth has put her in the crosshairs of a devious killer desperate to silence her. Permanently.
About the Author:
Annette Dashofy is the USA Today best-selling author of the multi–Agatha Award nominated Zoe Chambers mystery series about a paramedic and deputy coroner in rural Pennsylvania’s tight-knit Vance Township. Her latest release, a standalone, is Death by Equine, about a veterinarian at a second-rate thoroughbred racetrack seeking the truth about her mentor’s mysterious death. She and her husband live on ten acres of what was her grandfather’s dairy farm in southwestern Pennsylvania with their very spoiled cat, Kensi.
https://www.annettedashofy.com/
Thanks for having me here today, Donnell!
My pleasure, Annette. If I haven’t mentioned it, I loved Death by Equine:) in all of its versions.
I haven’t read it yet, Annette, but it’s sitting on my Kindle and is next in line! I’m glad you’ve been able to find a new home for Zoe.
I brushed off two shorts and am revising and writing a new one. But as for the one book I haven’t touched in years…probably never see the light of day. Congratulations on your book!
Vicki, I feel your pain. I have three books in mothballs. I’ve learned much over the years.
Annette, you have given me inspiration to dust off my ms and go forth into the light!
What a great story—love that you circled back after having so much success with your other series! Happy ending.
Apologies to everyone for not being here to respond promptly to comments.
Kathleen, thank you so much! I’m happy to have a new home for Zoe too. I hope you like Death by Equine!
Vicki, I kept saying “probably never see the light of day” too, but there’s always that one friend (Donnell!) who keeps insisting!
Karen, go for it! And good luck!
Thanks so much, Cynthia! Loved your guest stint on Wrong Place, Write Time, by the way!
I’m so glad you did. Death by Equine is one of my favorite books in 2021!
Congratulations, Annette, for taking your writing career into a new direction.