Pamela: What does it mean that Starz has 'optioned' the trilogy? As soon as we signed the dotted line I pulled my version of the book. Pamela: When you inked the deal with Simon and Schuster, did you pull the book off the market then? Needless to say, it was an exciting few weeks, and I didn't sleep much while we figured out where the series would land. We had interest before I ever released, but while negotiating I was able to release the book. We agreed I'd release on schedule, and she'd work her magic fast. Louise and I chatted it out because I had a lot invested in promoting the release day. They wanted to show it to New York houses. I sent Louise Fury If I Were You, and she immediately got excited about the project with me, and so did her boss Lori Perkins. I took a deep breath and dared to believe in me and it and said, 'No.' I then went in search of an agent to handle the foreign rights, because the agent I had didn't handle foreign rights for indie. I had one of my editors offer on the series, but the changes asked for and the money felt off.

I was optioned for books at the time, and I just never could get time to fully write it.įinally, the time came to write it and when I was done I just felt in my gut it was the best I've ever been. My fiancé had found a journal in a real storage unit and really wanted me to write a suspense wrapped around it. I had been plotting this series for years. Did you have any sense when you wrote If I Were You that the book would be so amazingly successful? Since then - that's six months ago - the trilogy has been optioned by Starz for a television series and has sold to numerous foreign-language markets. You published the first book in the trilogy, If I Were You, independently, and in less than a month signed a contract for the trilogy with Simon and Schuster. Pamela: Last year was a phenomenal year for you with the breakout of your Inside Out trilogy. We sat down with Jones to chat about her amazing rise to success, the Inside Out trilogy and how saying 'no' to a publisher can sometimes be the best decision an author can make. One of her independent works, If I Were You (book one of the Inside Out trilogy), was snapped up by a New York publisher shortly after it was released and has created a huge international buzz, garnering comparisons to E.L. Since then, she's written more than 30 novels and novellas, many of them published independently. In 2003, she sold her business and took her skill as a businesswoman into the world of romantic fiction. But Jones realized that she didn't want to remain in the corporate world. 7 top-growing woman-owned business by Entrepreneur magazine. Before taking up the pen, she headed a staffing agency that was recognized as the No. Author/entrepreneur Lisa Renee Jones is no stranger to success.

If i were you book lisa renee jones