Lauren Barnholdt is touring the Girlfriend Cyber Circuit with her new novel, The Secret Identity of Devon Delaney, launching the new Simon and Schuster MIX line for tweens. Lauren’s first book for teens, Reality Chick, was a Teen People Can’t-Miss Pick and a New York Public Library Best Book for the Teen Age 2007. From the press kit:
Mom says karma always comes around to get you, and I guess it's true. Because last summer I was a total liar, and now, right in the middle of Mr. Pritchard's third-period math class, my whole world is about to come crashing down…I get a kick out of the twenty-something authors I meet here and there. Getting a book out at that age is a huge accomplishment. I sent my first round of query letters on my 30th birthday, and my first book came out when I was 34. The truth is, I wasn't ready for it in my 20s. I enjoyed Lauren's take on the experience of being published (from the sage perspective of a 26-year-old):
That's because while Devon was living with her grandmother for the summer, she told her "summer friend," Lexi, that she was really popular back home and dating Jared Bentley, only the most popular guy at school. Harmless lies, right? Wrong. Not when Lexi is standing at the front of Devon's class, having just moved to Devon's town. Uh-oh.
People say that once you get published, nothing changes, and that if you think it does, you're just setting yourself up for a huge disappointment. I don't agree --I think everything changes AND nothing changes.Go, baby girl, go!
Nothing changes in that you still have to love the writing, you still have to love the process, because none of it gets easier -- writing a book is HARD, revising a book is HARD, and that doesn't change after you've sold one or three or one hundred. Once you're published, a whole new set of problems pops up. Instead of trying to find an agent, you're trying to think of the best ways to promote, how to get your editor to understand your reasons for certain things, freaking out over your cover, worrying that you're not going to get enough attention from your publicist. You check your Amazon rank obsessively, even though your agent tells you it doesn't mean anything. You wonder what will happen if this book, or the next book, or the one after that, just tanks. What if nobody buys it? What if it really does suck? You read your writing over, wondering what sort of drugs your editor must have been on when she offered you money for it, and if she might lose her job once everyone realizes your book is just horrible...
Why wouldn't you freak out? Your work is now going to be out in the world, and that's thrilling and terrifying.
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