When Paranormal Wasn’t Cool By Hailey North

Today’s guest post is by Hailey North, author of Bedroom Eyes and Perfect Match.

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Once upon a time, in this very galaxy, there existed a world that had never known Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg, a planet untouched by mobile apps and tablet readers . In that world, the purveyors dealt with printed volumes, bound books consisting of paper pages, descendants of the line of J. Gutenberg. These creatures had to be resourceful as they competed not only with other brick and mortar edifices, but with every drugstore, grocery, and truck stop, all displaying books for purchase by Homo sapiens.

The Homo sapiens, readers one and all, did not have to worry about whether a potential purchase would be fraught with inconsistent characters and illogical plotting or peppered with typos and sentences ending with prepositions. The world in this not-so-terribly distant past was protected by a species known as Gate Keepers. Gate Keepers belonged to one of several classes: Editors, Copy Editors, and Sales & Marketing.

Only an Editor could green-light a book. With no thumbs-up from this Gate Keeper, would-be authors slunk off into the night, doomed to wear the sackcloth and ashes of the unpublished, the wanna-be writer. Or at the most, the rejected one cranked out five copies (one for each family member) on her mimeograph machine, cheered only by the dizzying aroma of the copy fluid.

For those fortunate few, the lucky ones selected to pass into the World of Publishing, their lives changed inestimably. No longer did they suffer the fears of the unchosen ones, but a new tyranny arose. They were yoked to the Editor, whose tastes and decisions were final—unless Sales & Marketing had other thoughts on “what was working.” During the good years, the Editor’s vision matched and even surpassed that of the writer, creating a synergy that resulted in a book that warmed the hearts and minds of readers. If the times went well, and the Copy Editor goddesses smiled on these lucky writers, the manuscript was improved, lifted above the ordinary. There were times when writers learned rules and definitions of which they’d been ignorant. The good Copy Editors wielded their pens like magic wands. The not-so-good ones fought bloody battles, somehow forgetting that the Writer is the Writer and a Copy Editor is not.

The state of this world was imperfect. Some truly great books never saw life other than beneath the writer’s bed. Some not-so-good books went out into the world not because of quality, but due to the humongous advance that needed to be recouped. Some brilliant books got lost in the shuffle of Marketing & Sales. Some writers, struggling to live on the average dollar advance and work a day job, too, simply gave up.

The year is now 2015. The tribe of Bezos has declared the overthrow of the tyranny of the Gate Keepers. No longer does the species of the Unpublished Author exist. Rejection is a term related to unfriending, not to the response of an Editor who has given much thought to a proposal and decided, perhaps reluctantly, that the book is not ready for publication.

As the author of Bedroom Eyes and Perfect Match (and eleven other novels), I stand with one foot in the world of Gutenberg and one other foot edging gingerly into the waters of Bezos. Cast your mind back to the last years of the twentieth century, 1998 to be exact. That is the time I wrote Bedroom Eyes, a light-hearted paranormal romance set in New Orleans. The Detroit Free Press named Bedroom Eyes one of the top ten romances of the year.

The book is a product of the era of the Gate Keeper. The Editor loved the proposal and issued the green light. Yet when the Editor read the book and discovered there was no “consummation” scene, the rule of the world was such that the Writer, in order to achieve publication, had to submit to the decree. Thus, the only sex scene this Writer has ever penned that was wrong, wrong, wrong for the characters came into being. Was this Writer a coward? Possibly, but she needed to pay her mortgage.

And now Bedroom Eyes lives again as an e-book. And this brave new world made it possible for the Writer to revise the story and even though the sex scene lives on as written, the hero, who truly acted like a jerk, owns up and apologizes to the heroine. Evolution, the good and the bad.

In the olden world, Sales & Marketing always trumped the Editor. In 2000, the beginning of this brave new century, Sales & Marketing decreed that “paranormal wasn’t working.” And that decree, from the Gate Keepers of old, is the reason why master candle magician Alistair Gotho, who first appeared in Bedroom Eyes, has renounced his paranormal gifts and declared his intent to join the family banking business. Again, there was that mortgage.

In today’s brave and sometimes foolish world, this writer could have walked away from the Gate Keeper and uploaded a version of the book that didn’t need to please anyone in the community of the Gate Keepers. Yet, when all is said and done, the Gate Keepers, working hand in hand with the Writer, brought to life books worth reading, books that continue to live on, into this brave new century. Here’s to you, Gate Keepers.

Click here to read more about Bedroom Eyes and Perfect Match by Hailey North.

About Hailey North

Hailey North is a USA Today bestselling author who began writing while employed as a “game show lawyer” for NBC Studios. Tired of hearing lawyers weren’t creative, she quit her job and typed “Chapter One” (not the chapter, just the heading!). Since that day, North has penned eight romantic comedies set in her adopted hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana, and in her favorite imaginary town, Doolittle, Arkansas.

She has also created a three-book “afterlife” series that celebrates creative, but accidentally dead, characters trying their darnedest to win a second chance at life. North lives in Louisiana with her husband, her food-centric Labrador Shelby and her two kindred-spirit felines, Ali Kat and Rosa Pax.

Connect with Hailey: Website | Facebook | Goodreads