As Wide as The Sky Release and Book Launch

I am REALLY excited about the release of my first national market women's fiction novel, As Wide as the Sky, which will be released on July 31st from Kensington Books. This will also be the first novel I have done under a pen name--Jessica Pack. The reason for the pen name is to differentiate this novel from my other novels, as this one has different content. While I hope many current fans of Josi S. Kilpack novels will also enjoy As Wide As the Sky, I'm hoping to build a new audience too :-) In light of getting the word out about Jessica Pack and As Wide as the Sky, I'm running a contest for five autographed copies. Multiple entries via this link: a Rafflecopter giveaway.

Also:

• Purchase and Pre-order links as well as the first chapter for As Wide as the Sky are available on my website here: As Wide As the Sky
• You can follow Jessica Pack's social media networks on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.
• If you are in the Salt Lake area I would LOVE for you to attend the in person launch party:

Book Launch Information

The King's English Book Shop

Tuesday, August 7th, 7:00 PM

1511 South 1500 East

Salt Lake City

There will be a presentation starting at 7:00 as well as refreshments, a prize drawing, and a book signing. Photos will be posted on the Facebook event page during and after the event. (you can join the event via the rafflecopter give away above--might as well, right? :-)  )

Right now the two names I'm writing under are overlapping in regard to how I'm putting the word out, but I'll be separating over time. If you're interested in works like As Wide as the Sky, you'll want to make sure you're following Jessica Pack.

Thank you so much--Happy reading!

Overdue Update

It's been awhile and I haven't given an update on how goes the writing for a really long time. I've got some exciting things happening, which makes now a good time:

My third Regency Romance--The Vicar's Daughter--has just been released, people who pre-ordered have started receiving their copies. You can read the opening chapter on my website. It's a country regency, meaning it isn't dealing with London and titles and whatnot, and I really enjoyed writing this book. I'm finishing up a sequel to it right now and hope that it will be out this time next year--cross your fingers for me.

My third Historical Romance--All that Makes Life Bright--will be coming out in Fall 2017. This book is about Harriet Beecher Stowe and her husband Calvin. There's a women's fiction feel to this story, as they are married throughout, but it's still a romance in that they come together and figure one another out. This book really spoke to me on a personal level and I hope readers find it as powerful for them.

AND FINALLY, my big news that I am so excited to share!! Back in 2015 I signed with my wonderful agent, Land Heymont (Here's how he and I got together.) At that time he was with The Seymour Agency and helped me with my current publishing relationship with Shadow Mountain. He's helped me with several contracts since then while also shopping some work to national publishers, in 2016 he established his own agency, The Tobias Agency. Publishing is competitive, it takes quality work, time, and industry savvy to get a national contract. Lane helps with all those aspects and I have loved working with him. He's tenacious and yet calm. Last Tuesday, while visiting my parents, I got an email from him where he'd forwarded a rejection from an editor we were really hopeful for. She had liked the story but her review team hadn't liked it quite as much. She gave us the reasons why. I asked Lane if I should work on those changes, maybe I'd missed the mark and the unusual format hadn't worked like I wanted it to. He told me not to worry about it, that there were other editors still looking and if they all passed then we would go back to the feedback and see what we thought. I appreciated the calm and pushed it out of my mind. the next day--like, the VERY next day--he called me. Alicia Condon, an editor at Kensington Publishing, had loved the book and wanted to make an offer. Not only did they want to offer on that book, they wanted to make a 2-book deal! Kensington publishes the mass market paperback novels you see in grocery stores; a whole new format and level of distribution for me. I am so excited that they saw good stuff in my story, and so grateful for Lane's calm assurance that kept me from stressing about issues that were not necessary to stress over. The title they've chosen is As Wide as the Sky, which I absolutely love. It will be published under the pen name, Jessica Pack. You can read the basics about the book HERE.

I've heard for years that publishing is scary, that people are intimidating, and that there's a lot of negativity in the industry. There is negativity and low moments and frustrations and events that make you question yourself. Absolutely. But there are good people who work hard and want quality work and are willing to take chances. I've been publishing for 18 years now, but I didn't really have a career until 9 years ago when Shadow Mountain took a chance on my first culinary mystery, and I haven't had this kind of national reach until now, thanks to Lane and Kensington. A career in writing is about building blocks, and sometimes it's slow and sometimes that's because you have stuff you need to learn until you're ready to have both feet in this pool. Keep at it, remain prayerful of the direction that's right for you, look for writing opportunities of every kind, set goals you know you can reach in order to build up your confidence, and never forget that editors and agents are just people, doing their best just like you. The magic happens, and then you find yourself at a new level with another level calling out for you. Keep climbing. Keep learning. Stay humble, and learn from your mistakes rather than marinate in them.

Thanks for sharing this happy news with me! :-) 

What Does a Starred Review Mean?

I'm not new to writing or traditional publishing, but with my newest book -A Heart Revealed - I am stepping into the national market for the first time. I've never had a book reviewed by the industry trade journals so I was anxious and eager and freaked-out and excited about how A Heart Revealed would be received by national critics. 

Not every book submitted to publishing trade journals gets reviewed. The journals can be picky and, then, the reviews aren't guaranteed to be positive. In regard to Publishers Weekly (PW), there's concern that they tend to lean away from conservative fiction, which is what I write.  The next biggest player with the trade journals is Kirkus, who is known for not being as nice as PW. After PW and Kirkus is Booklist, Library Journal, and a handful of more regional journals whose reviews matter in regard to national exposure for good or bad.

Two months ago I learned that my book had been sent to all of these journals and my publisher expected reviews to start coming in mid-February. I asked my publicist to read any reviews before sending them to me because a bad review can set me back for weeks. I would have expected that poor reviews would get easier as time marched forward in my writing career, but that has not been the case for me. I’ve published more than twenty novels over the last fifteen years, but rather innocuous comments like "Kilpack's writing has improved since the first book in this series" or "This isn't the kind of book you'll skip dinner for" on Goodreads can create a pit in my stomach that is as illogical as it is real, no matter how many good reviews I read to remedy my reaction to the negative. So I avoid reading reviews. Unless someone sends me the link with an indication that it's positive, I will rarely dare to read them. My ego has become fragile, go figure.

Where was I . . . oh yeah. . . two weeks ago.

On Tuesday, February 17^th, my publicist sent me the link to the recently published PW review, not only a review but a starred review! Because she promised the review would not send me into a downward spiral, I was able to read it and WOW, it was so complimentary. My whole body tingled in response to the few sentences of praise that followed the basic retelling of the storyline (standard practice.) I could not have been more thrilled and immediately went online to learn the difference between a starred review and a regular review.

PW does about 10,000 reviews a year. Of those, about 500 will get starred reviews which means "A book of outstanding quality." Another percentage will get a "Blue Title" which means that the book didn't get a star, but it does have unusual commercial appeal. A starred review influences sales—especially by retailers and libraries—and by way of validation, it was HUGE! To-the-moon-my-cheeks-hurt-from-smiling HUGE! You can read the full review HERE.

That was Tuesday. On Wednesday, I received another email from my publicist with her encouragement to read the review for A Heart Revealed from Kirkus. Two national trade journals in two days? Not only that, Kirkus gave A Heart Revealed a starred review as well. Kirkus does 8,000 to 10,000 reviews a year, and approximately 10% of those reviews are starred. A Kirkus star is "awarded to books of exceptional merit." Additionally, recipients of a Kirkus star are automatically eligible for the Kirkus Prize, a $50,000 prize awarded to the winning books published and starred in the given year. I'm not holding my breath for a Kirkus Prize, but I won't give up hope either :-) You can read the Kirkus review HERE.

And so, what does this mean for me and my book? It means more industry people will buy it. It means more libraries will stock it and more readers will read it because it will be available. It means that I’m entering the national market with a couple of important reccomendations next to my book title. It doesn’t mean the book will be bestseller. It doesn’t mean that readers will enjoy it as much as the reviewers did, and it doesn’t mean that books without starred reviews aren’t excellent, but, dang, it’s a really great start for this new phase of my career. I'm so grateful to my publisher, Shadow Mountain, for having enough confidence in this story to send it off with the hopes that we would get this kind of feedback. I am so blessed to be part of such an exceptional team.

To wrap this up - I'm in a great place right now and I am trying hard to maximize it to the height of it's potential. Publishing is full of hills and valleys, the key is to soak up the sun when you reach the peaks. I plan to! 

A Heart Revealed is available for pre-order through deseretbook.com, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble