Okay, I finally got at the final cover for Spider’s Bite from my edi­tor, which means that I can con­tinue my minis­eries on cover blurbs. In my last post, I talked about send­ing out my cover blurb pack­age to authors ask­ing them to read Spider’s Bite. Now, I want to talk about the folks who were kind enough to take the time to read and blurb the book. Here they are (in no par­tic­u­lar order):

Nalini Singh: Nalini is the New York Times best-selling author of the para­nor­mal romance Psy-Changeling series, as well as the urban fan­tasy Guild Hunters series. Her lat­est Psy-Changeling book, Blaze of Mem­ory, comes out this week. Nalini is a Berkley author, and I first met her at one of the Berkley author sign­ings at RWA a few years back. We had run into each other at var­i­ous con­fer­ences since then and e-mailed a few times about var­i­ous things. Nalini was also nice enough to send me some mag­a­zines when Hot Mama was excerpted in the Aus­tralian ver­sion of Cosmo a while back. Nalini does really cool world build­ing in her books and writes com­pli­cated, inter­est­ing char­ac­ters, so I thought she would be a great blurber for Spider’s Bite.

Lisa Shearin: Lisa is the national best-selling author of the fan­tasy adven­ture Raine Benares series, which includes Magic Lost, Trou­ble Found. Now, before I asked her for a blurb, I had never met Lisa at a con­fer­ence, never e-mailed her, noth­ing. But I saw a post about her on her agent, Kristin Nelson’s blog, and I thought her books sounded really cool. (Seri­ously, how often do you see a first-person female hero­ine in epic fan­tasy?) So I checked out her books. I really liked the fact that she wrote such a strong, but fun female char­ac­ter in Raine, so I e-mailed her about blurb­ing. I have to say that I was sur­prised (and thrilled) when she said yes.

Lilith Saint­crow: Lilith is the author of sev­eral urban fan­tasy and other series, includ­ing the Dante Valen­tine series and the Jill Kismet series. I had read the first few books in the Dante series, includ­ing Work­ing for the Devil, and enjoyed them. A while back, I had also writ­ten some brief review blurbs on the books for my news­pa­per and had e-mailed the pages to Lilith. When I e-mailed her ask­ing for a blurb, she remem­bered my reviews, which was really cool. Lilith also writes really strong female char­ac­ters and the world build­ing in her Dante Valen­tine series is an inter­est­ing mix of sci-fi and fantasy.

Jackie Kessler: Jackie is the author of the Hell on Earth and Icarus Project series (with Caitlin Kit­tredge). The Icarus series includes Black and White, which is about super­heroes, a sub­ject near and dear to my heart. I met Jackie at RT last year in Pitts­burgh, and we’ve run into each other at var­i­ous con­fer­ences since them. Jackie was also nice enough to inter­view me for her Cat and Muse blog, and we’ve e-mailed about var­i­ous book stuff. Jackie writes a really zany, fun char­ac­ter in Jezebel in her Hell on Earth series, along with a great bad boy in Daunuan.

Adrian Phoenix: Adrian is the author of the urban fan­tasy The Maker’s Song series, which includes A Rush of Wings. Think FBI agents, vam­pires, and more in the steamy locale of New Orleans. Like me, Adrian is another Pocket Books author, and my edi­tor asked her about blurb­ing Spider’s Bite, which she gra­ciously agreed to do. (It’s very com­mon for edi­tors to ask other authors at their houses for blurbs). I’d heard a lot of good things about Adrian’s books, so I was really excited that she was read­ing my book.

(I was excited that all the blurbers were read­ing my book — and a lit­tle ner­vous too. You always want other folks to like your work).

So to sum up, I had pre­vi­ously met or e-mailed Nalini, Lilith, and Jackie before ask­ing them for blurbs. So I guess the moral of the story is that it really does help to net­work with other authors.

But, on the flip side, I had never met or e-mailed Lisa or Adrian before, so I guess that moral is that it never hurts to ask another author for a blurb (whether it’s you or your agent/editor). The worse she can do is say no.

As for why I (and by exten­sion my agent/editor) picked these authors, they all really have two things in com­mon — really strong female char­ac­ters and cool world build­ing. We also tried to get folks in a vari­ety of gen­res, in this case para­nor­mal romance, urban fan­tasy, and epic fantasy.

Up next: What the blurbers said about Spider’s Bite. And the cover!