If you learned everything you know about authors from watching TV or movies, you might think we’re all wealthy, that we just send off a manuscript and then get a check in the mail almost instantly, and that we become famous and live like movie stars after publishing one book. Even when you know more about what it’s really like to try to build a publishing career, there’s a lot you may not realize behind the success of a bestselling author. I’ve known Rachel Caine, author of the bestselling Morganville Vampires series and the Weather Warden series, among others, for many years, but I hadn’t realized just how much effort and even failure came before her success until I heard her give a presentation on her career. If you’re thinking about becoming a writer, this story may be scarier than any of her books, but it can also be encouraging because one failure doesn’t mean you’ll never be successful. Her very first novel was a role-playing game tie-in. “I didn’t know what I was doing,” she confessed, but the editor liked her style. She decided to join a writers group, and one member told her she sucked, while another told…

March 2010 On Sale: March 16, 2010 Featuring: Radar Hoverlander; Allie Quinn; Vic Mirplo 272 pages ISBN: 0307463176 EAN: 9780307463173 Hardcover $23.00 Add to Wish List Fiction, Suspense Buy at Amazon.com Even a warm con in CA is better than…hilarious peek into the world of the grift The California Roll by John Vorhaus Meet Radar Hoverlander, a witty, gifted con artist with the mind of David Mamet, the voice of Tom Robbins, and the morals of a sailor on shore leave. What do the Merlin Game, the Penny Skim, the Doolally Snadoodle, and the Afterparty Snuke have in common? They’re all the work of world-class con artist and master bafflegabber Radar Hoverlander. Radar’s been “on the snuke” since childhood, but he’s still looking for his California Roll, the one big scam that’ll set him up in sushi for life. Trouble arrives in the stunning, sassy package of Allie Quinn—either the last true innocent or a con artist so slick she makes Radar look like a Quaker. Radar’s hapless sidekick, Vic Mirplo, a lovable loser who couldn’t con a kid out of a candy cane, thinks Radar’s being played. But if love is blind, it’s also deaf, dumb and stupid, and…

My mother made me an addict. She introduced me to comics and forced me to read books. My enrollment in drawing and photography classes came with my discovery of motor skills. The woman was relentless in immersing me in theater and symphonies. Now I visit libraries and bookstores as if they’re dealers. I roll Playbills, light them and inhale. I’m a woman who pumps art straight into her veins, and finds joy in sharing her drugs of choice. I first expressed my addiction through a career in graphic design.  Inspiration came from color, fonts and illustrations. Art movements were translated into graphics, and when a client was happy I was thrilled. Design is storytelling, like all the arts I grew up loving, but it is flash fiction—a tale told in a glance. I craved more. Much later I began writing screenplays and poetry, which led to prose. Before then I’d been talking about writing. My words never equated to more than “I can start whenever I want to.” I didn’t, though. Not until—in true addict-style—I hit rock bottom. I couldn’t regroup until I’d turned tears into ink and emptied myself onto the page. Once I’d written through the pain fiction…