Meet Roberta Goodman, author of thriller novel "Snow Escape"

Today I have a special guest for a guest blog. Roberta Goodman is the author of the mystery novel, Snow Escape. She shares with us her journey to publication and beyond. I, for one, felt the chills after reading it!

Welcome Roberta!

How I ended up with "Snow Escape":

First, I want to take this opportunity to thank Shilpa for having me participate on her wonderful blog.

The story behind my murder mystery/thriller/suspense is one that I love to tell, because I was compelled to write it by an overwhelming inspiration that I couldn’t fight. Back in the winter of 2009/2010 three massive snowstorms hit my area of the country. One occurred in December and two back-to-back storms occurred in less than a week in February.

A week after the storms in February hit, another storm was passing by. No measurable amount of snow was predicted this time. I was sitting at my computer sending out queries for a previous manuscript and I looked out the window and watched as more snow fell. I remember thinking, "Thank God this storm is going to pass by fairly quickly and head up north to New York. Let them get dumped on, because I'm sick of snow."

Enter light bulb moment. What if you have a woman in Brooklyn, NY, a teacher, and she's stuck in her apartment building, because it just keeps snowing? What if said woman uses an online dating site to meet men and one of these men uses this snow event to contact and terrorize her? What if she discovers that he's been stalking her for weeks; claims he lives in her apartment building; and intends on harming her? From the beginning, I knew I wanted to write it so the reader would question if these things were happening. Is there really a maniac running loose in her apartment building, or is Allegra imagining it? I wrote the first chapter in an hour and the whole story was completed in five months.

I started the process of querying to agents. I had high hopes that someone would feel as passionate about this work as I was. I sent out over a hundred queries and waited patiently for the responses. Rejections started to pour in from about half of those queried. After several months of this, I ended up shelving Snow Escape. It sat in my computer for almost a year.

In that time, my family endured a health crisis and I ended up writing another manuscript in addition to working as a freelancer. Back in July, something compelled me to revise Snow Escape and within a week, through fate, I had the number of a small e-Publisher. I called her up and told her about my project. She was extremely interested, because and I quote “mysteries tend to sell well.” I sent her a query and a synopsis. Within a half hour, she emailed me back saying she wanted me to resend the synopsis and the first three chapters.  I was to be reviewed by a panel of five people and if the majority liked my work, I would be offered an e-Book contract. A little over a week later, I received an email stating that my work was going to be published.

My debut novel, Snow Escape, was released on October 1st. My e-Publisher doesn’t have a budget for promoting, so it’s been up to me to spread the work. I’ve chosen to write about my novel on several social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter being the two most important ones. I utilize Goodreads, which is an amazing online book club where authors and readers come together. I also use my blog to let my followers know updates about the novel and where it can be purchased. Wonderful bloggers, like Shilpa, have also offered to let me tell my story.


To My Readers:

I’m living proof that if you work hard and are willing to put the time in that’s needed to showcase your work then it’s possible to reach your intended audience. Through utilizing an independent e-Publisher my route wasn’t the traditional one, but it is one that has worked for me.

Thank you again Shilpa for giving me a forum to express why I was inspired to write Snow Escape. I hope by explaining how I went about getting my debut novel published, I can inspire other authors to reach their goal of getting published.

Thank you Roberta for sharing your wonderful journey with us here on my blog! Its a pleasure having you here! Wish you all the best with the book and beyond!

The story of "Snow Escape" might just be the perfect thriller for Halloween! Roberta says you can treat yourself a thrilling Halloween by buying it at Amazon, Fictionwise, Write Words Inc. and Mobipockets!

Roberta would also love to have you on her blog http://ro-alwaysinspired.blogspot.com/  
                                                                                                              You can also follow her on Twitter by clicking here: @RobertaGoodman