Ten questions with Shannon Baker
Thrilled today to welcome Shannon Baker, the award-winning author of The Desert Behind Me, the Kate Fox series, the Nora Abbott mysteries and the Michaela Sanchez Southwest Crime Thrillers. A two-time winner of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Writer of the Year Award, Shannon offers a candid and entertaining description of her path to publication. She’s also an inspiring example of tenacity and dedication.
1. Please tell us about your debut novel.
Ha! My debut novel was called Ashes of the Red Heifer and it was released in 2010 by a nano press in Texas. It was a book I’d worked on way, way too long, incorporating every new skill I learned as I learned it. When it was finally published, it was more of a Frankenstein mish-mash. It’s thankfully out of print now. I do love the story, but it wasn’t ready for prime time.
2. I’ve read that only 4% of the people who start a novel, finish writing it. Why do you think you beat the odds?
Short answer: I don’t needle point.
Longer version: Basically writing was a way to entertain myself. My road to publication was like global circumnavigation. I’m a lesson in tenacity. Raising kids, isolated in the Nebraska Sandhills, a million or so years ago, I started writing. I got a job afternoons at the Treasurer’s office and the treasurer didn’t want me to do anything but help citizens. That gave me hours of downtime when I needed to look busy. Because I wasn’t allowed to read, I ended up writing stories—on a typewriter. As the years progressed, I learned more, attended conferences, kept writing, kept reading, kept learning. I took a couple of breaks for life crises, but always returned. I mostly got up at 4:30 and wrote before going to work.
3. Was your debut novel the first book you wrote? (Any prior efforts hiding on your hard drive?)
Oh, dear, no. It was my fourth completed novel. When I finished the first book, which I thought was pretty good, my father had just been admitted to the hospital with a brain tumor. Since he couldn’t keep his eyes open for long periods, he couldn’t watch TV or read. I thought I’d be very helpful and read my book to him. After I’d been at it for about an hour I paused with this sinking feeling. “Nothing is happening, is it?” I asked him. He couldn’t speak at that point and shook his head. We moved on to Jurassic Park. I hate to say the writing was so bad it killed him, but the sad truth is that he never got out of the hospital.
4. What helped you become a better writer? Any books or resources you found helpful?
So, so many books. Stephen King’s On Writing, Ann Lamott’s Bird by Bird, Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel, Larry Brooks’s Story Engineering, and so many more. But what really taught me to write was attending Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Colorado Gold Conference every year. This con is/was so chock full of the mechanics of craft it’s amazing. Oh, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the old classic, Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer.
The conference is being held during the weekend of October 15-17, 2021..
5. What was your process like getting an agent?
I’m a member of Sisters in Crime and every month, their newsletter lists mystery deals from Publisher’s Weekly. Being the accountant I am, I created a spreadsheet and listed all the sales for the last two years by agent. I listed who they sold to and then sorted the list to see who had sold how many books to what publishers. After I identified the top sellers to publishers I wanted, I researched the agents to try to figure out who would be a good fit. It wasn’t a perfect system because not all agents list their sales with PW. But it worked a little better for me than Querytracker—which is an amazing service—because it was tailored to mystery.
6. How did you celebrate when you learned your book would be published?
This is kind of embarrassing and says way more about my dysfunction than I should reveal. When I got my first offer from a Big Five publisher, it came in the form of an auction. Three publishers wanted it. That blew me away since I’d been knocking on doors for a long time. I pulled over to the side of the road (I was driving in the mountains by myself) and did a little screaming scene. I called my husband. And then, because I didn’t want to jinx it, sort of kept it to myself and didn’t celebrate much. The day of the launch, I went out to breakfast with my husband.
Now that I’m older and wiser, I celebrate everything. If my publisher runs a Kindle Daily Deal, I break out the bubbly. In fact, I keep a bottle in the fridge, just in case.
7. What was the most exciting moment involving the publication of your debut novel? (The moment you first saw the cover? The call when you learned when it was being published? When you cashed your advance check?)
The most exciting thing about my debut being published was knowing I’d never rewrite that puppy again. Sure, I was very excited when they said they’d publish it. But the advance was $200, so not something to write home about. The cover was so horrible I contracted a designer of my own to redo it. But selling that book was like being let out of prison. I was so darned stubborn to keep trying to make it better and saleable, that I wouldn’t move on to something else.
Subsequent sales had all those incredible high points. Oh my, when I saw the cover for any of my books it gave me chills. And when you get a box of books, with your name on the cover… man, that never gets old!
8. What’s your best advice for someone who wants to be published?
The two most important and obvious: write daily (or as often as you can) and read all the time, in every genre. But here’s another: Don’t keep reworking the same book over and over. We know that writing is basically rewriting and that we need to edit and revise. But a writer can get so hung up on one book, reworking and rewriting, that they never progress. I can’t tell you how long that is.
9. What are you currently reading? Or, what's one of the best novels you've read lately?
I’m in the middle of The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. It’s definitely keeping me on my toes. I can’t even imagine a brain that could conjure this kind of plot. I recently read Fredrik Backman’s Anxious People. Honestly, there is not a word of Backman’s I wouldn’t read. I think Beartown might be my favorite book ever. But my preorder list has me all kinds of excited. Jess Lourey is coming out with Litani, Catriona McPherson has A Gingerbread House, and Lori Rader Day with Death at Greenway.
10. What are you working on now? Any projects coming out soon?
I just turned in Kate Fox book #5, Broken Ties, and am starting to research book 6. Part of that will be set in the uproar of the Vietnam war protests and I’m really excited about that. Audio for the first Kate Fox book, Stripped Bare, is set to release June 22. I’m deep into a suspense set in Tucson and hoping I can get back into that very soon. And Easy Mark, Kate Fox #4 will launch August 10th!