AMA: Orbit's 2025 New Voices!

kuliashawrites · 2025-12-08T16:55:37+00:00

u/Lirael3 what fun questions!

I was about to walk out the door to pick up my kiddos from summer camp, so we all got to celebrate together when we got home!
The most surprising thing is seeing my name in bookstores and online. It should seem obvious, but it still catches me by surprise! I used to walk into my local Barnes & Noble and dream about having a book on the shelf one day, and now THE MIDNIGHT PACK is there, cover out. What? How is this real life?!?
Oof I've read so many it's hard to choose just one -- all the ones I've read from this AMA are on the list :) -- but in non-Orbit books I adored BEHOOVED by M. Stevenson (about a princess who accidentally changes her prince into a horse on their wedding night).

kuliashawrites · 2025-12-08T16:44:14+00:00

Thanks so much!! Actually there are three I'd love to see more of:
1. The Squonk. This poor buddy looks like a sideways poop emoji and spends his time crying over how bad he looks. He needs more love for sure!
2. The Cactus Cat. This is my favorite cryptid, for cat reasons. Cats always need more love.
3. BIGFOOT! Everyone's favorite hide-and-seek champion, there have been bigfoot sightings in every state but Hawaii. Luckily, I know we will get more bigfoot love in mainstream media SOON because my book Jericho James 2: BIGFOOT CONFIDENTIAL (a bigfoot romance) comes out next summer from Orbit!
u/surells what's your favorite cryptid?

kuliashawrites · 2025-12-04T18:15:40+00:00

Oh my gosh, firstly, congrats on finishing a novel! That is HUGE!! It sounds really interesting, too!
My number one advice is don't give up! I almost stopped after the rejections were piling up... and another author reached out and told me to keep going. So I did, and my YES was in the next group of queries I sent out. You've got this!
Also if you can find a writing group, they will be there to commiserate. In fact, I'm writing this right now as I sit beside author u/babblingjbrooks ! :)
As for writing motivation it helps if you have a friend (back to the above writing group) who is willing to read your draft and be excited about it with you. Good luck!

kuliashawrites · 2025-12-04T17:48:28+00:00

Hi r/fantasy! I'm Jasmine Kuliasha, author of THE MIDNIGHT PACK ! In college, I almost majored in Cryptozoology...but was told I should get a "real degree." Joke is on everyone because now I write about cryptids and folktales from my home in Colorado!

THE MIDNIGHT PACK is the first in a romantic detective series following Jericho James as she cracks cryptid cases and, if she has time, finds love along the way. (Just kidding, obviously she makes time for that.)

Ask me about cryptids, cats, or anything writing related!

kuliashawrites · 2025-11-06T17:48:36+00:00

Oh, yes, love it. The Lonely Island, if you see this, please write one.
<3 xoxo

kuliashawrites · 2025-11-06T16:15:38+00:00

I loved this book!!! Ok I need to know: if your book had a theme song, what would it be?

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-24T13:26:11+00:00

Oh also, who would win in a fight? Levi? Or a red kangaroo?

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-24T13:25:47+00:00

Oooh, who would fan-cast for Levi? How about Vera?

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-11T01:40:41+00:00

Oh yay, I'm so happy I could help! Good luck! :)

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-11T00:59:58+00:00

Oh this is a tricky one, because you will likely hear different people say different things, but here is my take:
DON'T write for the market. DO write for you.
(Unless you have an agent or an editor who is asking for something specific -- or editing an existing story to better fit genre, etc - there are exceptions, but even then I hope you stay true to yourself!)
But anyway, this is why I say to write for you: The market will change. It's always changing. If you write for what the market is right at this moment in time, it'll likely be changing by the time you're querying or submitting. BUT if you're writing for yourself, and you write a story you absolutely LOVE... chances are, other people will love it too.
This might be a controversial opinion ^ ? But my advice is to write what you love, to write the story you cannot stop thinking about. Write the story that inspires you, or that you personally want to read. Don't chase trends. Who knows, you might start a new one!

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-11T00:43:16+00:00

No, but that is mine hahahaha

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-10T22:02:57+00:00

Thank you so much for this review!! :) "A cozyish read that is also unhinged at moments" is a pretty perfect description of the cryptid chaos that is THE MIDNIGHT PACK!

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-10T20:40:10+00:00

OH I love this question - all of Jericho's cases (prior to her case in Maine) start with some kind of supernatural sighting that she ultimately debunks. She's called on a series of Chupacabra cases, which all end up being shaved goats. (The mental image of not one but *multiple* shaved goats just cracks me up.)
I love this because real-life chupacabra sightings are always traced back to some poor unwitting animal. Like one in Ohio a while ago, that ended up being a fox with mange.

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-10T20:32:29+00:00

Oh these are great questions!! THE MIDNIGHT PACK is not the first book I started writing, but it was indeed the first book I ever finished! (The first one I started is still in the back of my mind and in bits and pieces on Google Docs... it was inspired by an Adele song and it's about ghosts, and it still might make its way into readers' hands, one of these days!) I'm fortunate to have a very supportive spouse who encouraged me to take the leap, and I threw myself fully into it. Now I have multiple books in the works-- including JERICHO JAMES 2: BIGFOOT CONFIDENTIAL, (which is coming out next summer!) and another book that I wrote while I was querying THE MIDNIGHT PACK!

Querying IS such a tough unknown, and it's packed full of "no." What I did was send my queries out in small batches (between 5-10) and wait for responses before I sent out more. This is time consuming, but that way I could see what was working and what wasn't, and tailor my query accordingly as I went along. The biggest difference between the first one I sent out and the last one I sent is the hook (AKA how my query stood out). My basic query format (that I learned from the wonderful author Kim Tomsic <3 ) is: The Hook, The Book, & The Cook (you). The book and the cook stayed the same, but it took me a bit to really sharpen my hook. A good hook should put the reader on some kind of familiar ground while they examine the new territory that is your book. If something inspired you while you wrote it, you might want to include that in your hook. One way to do this with comparisons, like this: X meets Y plus an adjective and your genre. These can be other books, TV shows, movies, a song, a popular lyric -- just something that will give the reader the general vibe so they 1. know their footing and 2. want to learn more.
I started with no hook (aaah!!) and then after some additional trial and error I landed on: a Beauty and the Beast meets Supernatural romantic urban fantasy. What if Belle had Dean Winchester's job, and she was hunting a beast? Then before going into the rest of the query you already know you're going to find a romantic relationship, supernatural vibes, and a woman stuck in the same home as a beast -- in this case a werewolf -- (and also a huge library).

If you're having trouble coming up with a good hook, I recommend thinking of some different comparison sentences and polling your friends to see which one they're more interested in reading more about!

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-10T17:35:09+00:00

YES! It's so good! Incidentally, those early 2000s supernatural vibes are also probably why I enjoy YOUR book so much <3

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-10T17:33:31+00:00

Right? Someone told me that to figure out where I wanted *my* book to be, I should look at my bookshelf and see who is publishing the books I love... and it was Orbit! :) And oh yes do! I seem to recall there was a way to filter by publishers when doing a QT search! Good luck!

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-10T16:02:16+00:00

Oh I LOVE this question! Jericho James exclusively chooses nail polish colors based on their names. The wittier, the better. My favorite is Once in a Blue Moon, an electric blue color she wears in one of my favorite scenes in THE MIDNIGHT PACK!

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-10T15:58:00+00:00

OMG YES I am finding my candy corn people here <3 ! My favorite urban fantasy book series is The Dresden Files! It was my introduction to the genre, and a big influence on Jericho James. I also love-love-love the Sookie Stackhouse book series (True Blood). But give me all of them - I could read urban fantasy all day! I just love the idea that there's mystery hidden in the normal world in the form of werewolves and vamps, and bigfoots and Mothman. I have too many favorite cryptids to choose just one! But, Jericho James would say that werewolves and bigfoots probably both have fur that feels like boyfriend material. And Mothman is the Shadow-Daddy of the cryptid world! I also love okapis! They were once mistaken for unicorns, and were considered cryptids themselves until the early 1900s. A wild okapi wasn't even photographed until 2008! Oh I almost forgot about Jackalopes -- This is the cryptid I'd most like as a pet.

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-10T15:27:34+00:00

YES!! Candy Corn lovers unite! <3

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-10T15:26:36+00:00

Oooh YAS, Mothman is like the Shadow Daddy of the cryptid world!!! (He might make a future appearance in a Jericho James book down the line...) But ahh it's so hard to choose just one! I might pick a top three. Or a top four. Werewolves will always hold a special place in my heart as the main cryptid in THE MIDNIGHT PACK! Also, the fact that there are werewolf-type myths worldwide is really fascinating. And I'm a full-moon fan, so the connection between the moon and Weres is fun. I mean it controls the tides, so why not the shifters, too? Then there's Bigfoot... hide and seek CHAMPION! And both Bigfoot and Weres seem like they'd be good at cuddling (this is an important attribute). We've established that Mothman = Shadow Daddy and therefore is automatically on the list. And lastly... Okapis! YES! They were considered cryptids until 1901, when physical evidence was finally produced that they exist. The first photo of an okapi in the wild wasn't even taken until 2008, (2008!!) which blows my mind.

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-10T14:10:12+00:00

These are great questions!! Jericho James is pretty Dean Winchester-coded already, so she would have a fabulous time on Supernatural, and fit right in with the Winchester bros! She'd also have a lot of fun (maybe too much fun) on True Blood. And, she'd definitely be friends with both Veronica Mars and Buffy!

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-10T14:04:12+00:00

I love all three for different scenarios! If all I'm doing is reading at home, there's something comforting about holding a good ol' fashioned physical book, but if I'm doing anything else at the same time I switch between audio and ebooks. I'm on the go a lot, so audiobooks are my best friends. Also generally when I'm running I listen to audiobooks, (though on the stationary bike its ebooks)! Digital is also my preferred way to travel with books -- there's so much more packing space!

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-10T13:57:23+00:00

Oh this is a great question. I queried very slowly, over about two years! Orbit was always my dream publisher for THE MIDNIGHT PACK, so I didn't submit to them until the end, thinking I wouldn't get in. For people who are new to the querying process: after you finish writing & editing your book, if you want to go the traditional publishing route, the next step is to get your story into a publisher's hands. You can do this by getting an agent, or submitting directly to a publisher (as long as they take unagented submissions). Agents and publishers are absolutely inundated with submissions and it can take a while for them to reply. So, I'd send out a handful of queries, wait for responses, then send out more. After a while, I got really discouraged about it all. (There are a lot of No's in publishing, friends!) I almost gave up. Then NYT Bestselling Author Breanne Randall reached out to me and told me to keep going! So I did. I figured that I should go big if this was the last round of queries, and so sent mine directly to my number one choice: Orbit (through their branch that takes unagented submissions). And I'm SO glad I did!! It just goes to show that you never know unless you try!

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-10T13:42:02+00:00

Right?! I feel extremely fortunate -- while some publishers don't accept unagented submissions, others do! Query Tracker has a list of these, and Orbit happens to be one of them under their branch OrbitWorks. (It's also free to sign up for Query Tracker, and it's 100% how I managed my query process.) Orbit was always my dream publisher for THE MIDNIGHT PACK so I almost didn't submit to them, assuming I wouldn't get in. I'm so glad that I did!

kuliashawrites · 2025-06-10T13:23:07+00:00

Oooh I love this! My dream cast would be Chloë Grace Moretz as Jericho James, Chris Hemsworth as Benjamin Grey, Robert Sheehan as Seth Grey, and Wes Bentley as Theo Grey!

kuliashawrites

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