Interview with Sandy Lender

Sandy is finishing up a virtual book tour, which began in May! today, she tells VirtualBookTourdeNet about her tour as well as her book. Check out her website for all the details about her, he stops and her book!

Some folks along the Choices Meant for Gods online book tour have asked if any of the characters in the novel make it autobiographical in any way. One of your answers is that you've placed your main character Chariss in similar situations to your childhood. Could you explain that for visitors to my site?

I moved a lot as a child (18 times before I got to college), so I realized, once I got to the marketing stage for CMFG, that I'd put Chariss through that same sort of upheaval all of her life. She and her wizard guardian have been on the run from benefactor to benefactor for sixteen years while this insane sorcerer has been chasing them with the intent to kill her.

And then a friend of mine from college contacted me through Nigel's blog recently (Nigel manages the site "Nigel Presents Sandy Lender" at http://sandylender.blogspot.com), and told me that he guessed I was either divorced or going through a divorce because of some comments in the novel. So I figure Chariss's stellar attitude toward marriage and longterm commitments, which kinda takes her beau by surprise in chapter 22, gives away my cynical view on all that. But, for all the tidbits of frustration I let Nigel, and the reader, feel from Chariss there, I think I make up for it when she gets through her arc and...well...I'll let folks read the story.

You had a guest blog early on in your online book tour in which you described your pitch session for Choices Meant for Gods. Could you recap that for my visitors and tell us why you opted for that means of approaching the publishing industry?

My pitch session was a riot! I actually had it a week earlier than I thought I was supposed to so I was totally unprepared and went into it with about three hours of sleep (this was before I was conditioned to function normally on three-hours-of-sleep-a-night, by the way) because I'd been up most of the night before typing the proposal, complete with treatment and synopsis. Color me nervous. Then the session itself, which was with the publisher himself (I'd given up on agents by that point because a year of rejection letters is a ridiculous thing to put yourself through - don't do it), took place in a large, busy room, about 8 to 10 feet from an elevator as people were returning from a lunch break. Read: crazy high traffic. I don't remember right now how many times we got interrupted, but people knew Bob was a publisher, so they wanted to walk up and talk to him...and they did. One lovely gal, whom I still adore, walked up to talk to me. So it was bizarre, but it went well, and Bob accepted my book. A couple weeks after that "fateful day" (typed with all the airy breathiness you can imagine into it), I got my contract attached to an e-mail. I was ecstatic.

Now, the reason I went that particular route to get my foot in the book publishing industry door is because no agents were interested in representing a magazine editor in the fantasy realm. How could a journalist possibly write something creative?

How long did it take for Choices Meant for Gods to get released once it was under contract?

About 13 months. I got the contract in February of 2006 and Choices Meant for Gods was released - my lifelong dream came true - in March of 2007. This is nothing compared to some of the waits I've heard of authors enduring. I consider myself fortunate to have been on the short-end of the "interminable wait" timeframe.

Tell us about your tour.
I've been doing this for almost two months now. I've been appearing at peoples' blog sites, websites, chat rooms, in their online newsletters, and in their online yahoo groups promoting Choices Meant for Gods...and that two-month segment of my life is about to come to a close. It's been absolutely exhausting to keep track of all the details and keep everything in order, but it's been thrilling, too. I've met some amazing and energizing people along the way. On Saturday, July 21, I end the tour with a bang. I'll be announcing the winner of my contest from http://choicesmeantforgods.wordpress.com and I'll be guest blogging at a variety of sites. It'll be a bit of a party-online, if you will. I'm just really looking forward to having a good time with some of these new friends I've made. And that's a cool thing for me as a new author.