Closed, plan to open Summer 2024
submission form to come
Kiss Pitch Author Mentoring
Status:
About Me:
Once I started writing in romance, I never looked back. I've self published over twenty-five novels under three names, and I’m repped by the lovely Jessica Watterson at SDLA.
I have three kids, eight and under, six ducks, three kittens, and while I don’t have a partridge in a pear tree, I do have a small apple orchard. I probably have five cracker jack rings lying around somewhere. I’m on the US east coast, but I’m willing to work with mentees anywhere else, as long as we can figure out a communication method that works for us!
The KissPitch 3.0 mentorship will be my fourth foray into mentoring. I previously mentored in Author Mentor Match for rounds 7 and 8, and the first version of Kiss Pitch.
My Wishlist:
I am open to nearly all sub genres of adult romance, as long as they have on the page heat. Your book must have a happily ever after and be a romance; I love women’s fiction, but I don’t want to mentor it. Same goes for erotic romance; I want the love story to take precedence. I know that is a fine line, but if you would classify your story as erotica, I’m probably not the best mentor for you. Send me your LGBTQ+ manuscripts and own voices stories, PLEASE! Here’s more about what I’m looking for:
• To-market writing, either for self-pub or indie
• Strong, unique voice
• Writing quality (ie working knowledge of grammatical conventions)
• Characters I can root for
• Commercial hook
Do NOT Send Me:
• Romantic Suspense
• Urban Fantasy
• Paranormal Romance
• Death of a child
• Miscarriage
• Sexual assault (unless in backstory/off the page)
• Abusive Love Interest (there’s a line between alpha hero and abuse)
• BDSM (nothing against this, I just don’t know enough to help a story with BDSM components)
• Teacher/student or boss/employee relationship where there’s an uneven or unethical power dynamic between the love interests
• Religious/inspirational romance
• War stories, unless it’s fantasy or sci fi romance
• Anything super-duper dark – I’m not opposed to reading dark romance, but this is NOT my wheelhouse
My Ideal Mentee:
I want to partner with YOU on your manuscript, and you know your work best. Ultimately, this is your book and your career. I want a mentee who takes their writing and this mentorship seriously and will put in the time and effort to make changes. I want someone who can handle constructive criticism well (with a dollop of love, of course), and will take on board suggested changes without hostility or ego. Not that I expect all my changes will be incorporated, but I want to enjoy working with my mentee, not feel like I’m locked in a battle of wills.
I would like to work on a manuscript that may need structural changes, character arc tweaks, better world-building, faster pacing, but not a massive rewrite. Stylistically, I want the writing level to be high. I don’t expect perfect manuscripts, not by any means, but there should be a base knowledge of sentence structure and flow inherent already.
My Mentoring Style:
I want to be your biggest cheerleader, I want to help push you to be your best, and I want to be there in the query trenches when things are rough and celebrate with you when you reach your goals. On the other hand, if you want to follow me into the self-publishing wilds, I am ready to lead the way.
Mentoring Strengths:
• Pacing issues (dev edit letter)
• Character arc issues (dev edit letter)
• External plot tweaks (dev edit letter)
• World-building (dev edit letter)
• Voice (dev edit letter & line edit)
• Style and flow (line edit)
• Any and all self-pub advice
Mentoring Weaknesses:
• Copy edits (not gonna happen, lol)
• Nagging you to get shit done
