Guest Post: Katie Delahanty, author of In Bloom

Today we have a special guest post from author Katie Delahanty. Please welcome her to Chapter Break.

Guest Post:  Path to Publication by Katie Delahanty

 

Thanks so much for having me!

The path to IN BLOOM becoming a published novel is a bit unusual, and the most surprising part of it for me was how I landed an agent.

In January of 2011 I was asked to write a blog for the lingerie line I worked for, In Bloom by Jonquil. Being fairly new to the company and a dress designer by trade, I didn’t have a wealth of knowledge about lingerie, so I thought it would be easier to write a fictional blog. At the time In Bloom was predominantly a bridal lingerie line and I knew I wanted to use wedding key words to help drive traffic to our ecommerce website so I invented a fictional girl, Olivia Bloom, who worked for In Bloom lingerie, anticipating that the blog would be her live wedding journal. As I began planning her wedding, though, I started to wonder who she was marrying… And it began.

Relying heavily on my personal experiences for inspiration, I started to tell Olivia Bloom’s story. My real life leading man, my husband Jason, was immersed in the Los Angeles music scene, and in the years post college we’d had a backstage view as some of our friends’ bands went on to become world famous, while others, despite their success, couldn’t keep it together and broke up, and still others never got off the ground. Being a part of this creative crew, but terribly shy, I was adept at hiding in corners at celebrity parties, wondering how I got there. And that was the basis for my story. Over nine months, the story took over my life, demanding to be told, and I posted two chapters a week to the “Bloom Blog” while live tweeting in real time as nine of the characters. In the end, I’d written a novel, and even more surprisingly to me, I’d fallen in love with writing.

After putting In Bloom down for a few months, I picked it up again and rewrote it with the intention of self-publishing it and giving it away to our lingerie customers for free. I knew nothing of the publishing industry—was completely ignorant—but from my research it seemed it would be a good idea to hire a professional to edit the book before sending it out into the world. So I set out to find one of those, nervous about investing my own money in the project, but consoling myself that at the very least this would be like a one-on-one master class in writing. Maybe someday I would again write a book and maybe someday I would pursue a traditional publication route, but seeing as this was the first thing I’d written, I certainly had a lot to learn. Not to mention I was suffering from extreme self-loathing and had convinced myself the book was terrible. I needed all the help I could get.

It took a while to find an editor I felt good about. I knew I wanted someone young and female, preferably who was a fan of Los Angeles, where the story is set. Eventually I stumbled upon a recommendation from a book PR website for Jennifer Pooley, an LA based editor who loved “indie voices and little books that could” and I knew I’d found her. The problem was, I was terrified to contact her. I was afraid she’d tell me I wasn’t good enough, thus dashing my newfound writing dreams, and I wasn’t sure I could handle that. In hindsight, I should have been afraid of contacting her because she had spent the last twelve years working for HarperCollins in New York, most recently as a senior editor acquiring for the William Morrow and Harper Perennial imprints. Had I known what any of that meant I would not have bothered her with my little story, but in this case ignorance truly was bliss.

Two years ago this month, I gave up fear for lent, and on the day I gave up fear, I emailed Jennifer Pooley and asked her to edit IN BLOOM. She accepted, and I sent the manuscript off, holding my breath, waiting for her to call back and gently break it to me that I should go back to designing clothes. But that’s not what happened. Instead, she emailed me the next morning, after reading all through the night, to say she loved it. And what’s more, a few weeks later, she asked if she could refund her fee and represent me. I was floored, but I said yes, and thus began the two year journey to publication, which was not without its ups and downs, celebrations and rejections. As I learned the ins and outs of publishing, I realized I’d done everything backwards. I’d found the editor who would have purchased my book (had she been still acquiring), before anything else was in place. Could lightening strike twice?

Fortunately, it did. The path to publication required me to be brave and trust my instincts, to be open to compromise, but hold my ground when it mattered, and eventually with the help of Jenny Bent of The Bent Agency, I signed a three-book contract with Entangled’s Embrace Imprint. Wow.

IN BLOOM was released to the world a little over a month ago and I have been having déjà-vu. I feel like I’m starting over as, like when it was a blog, the story finds its way in the world. But this time, I have a support team, and all the things in place that I only dreamed of as a blogger. Sometimes I can’t believe it’s real. I try not to get too caught up in everything going on surrounding the book’s publication—I just keep reminding myself that my love for the story is the most important part. And nothing has really changed. I’m still here at my computer; trying to write a wedding.

 

In Bloom by Katie Delahanty

Publication date: February 10th 2014

Publisher: Entangled Embrace

Blurb: My name is Olivia Bloom and I. Am. Free.
I left for LA with everything I owned piled into my old Volkswagen and dreams of becoming a costume designer. Little did I know I’d wind up designing for a lingerie company—yeah, not sure how I landed this gig—and taken under the wing of two young Hollywood insiders. The fashion shows and parties were great, but life really got exciting when the seriously hottest lead singer of my favorite band started to fall for me.　
How does someone like me, an ordinary girl from Pittsburgh, wind up in the arms of the world’s sexiest rock star—surrounded by celebrities, fashion, and music—and not be eaten alive? Berkeley is everything I’ve ever dreamed of in a boyfriend, but the paparazzi, the tabloids, the rumors, it’s all getting a bit too crazy. My life has become every girl’s dream come true, if only I don’t blink and lose it all…

 

About the Author: 

Katie is a fashion designer turned novelist. She graduated with a BA in Communication Studies from UCLA and a Professional Designation in Fashion Design from FIDM. It never occurred to her that she was a writer until an economic crisis induced career shift from lingerie designer to ecommerce webmistress led her to start the company blog. Not being an expert in lingerie, she decided to write the blog as a fictional serial starring a girl named Olivia Bloom who worked for the lingerie line. And that’s when Katie fell in love with storytelling. She hasn’t looked back since. Katie lives in Los Angeles with her husband.

Website |  Goodreads | Twitter | Amazon

 

 

 

Subscribe to Chapter Break posts.