{"id":13431,"date":"2012-03-08T12:20:34","date_gmt":"2012-03-08T18:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.olemiss.edu\/?p=13431"},"modified":"2014-09-23T08:33:23","modified_gmt":"2014-09-23T13:33:23","slug":"alumni-profile-stephanie-mcafee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web20.olemiss.edu\/news\/wordpress\/alumni-profile-stephanie-mcafee\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni Profile: Stephanie McAfee"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Stephanie McAfee<\/p><\/div>\n

When Stephanie McAfee (BA 00) began writing her first novel, she reached out to literary agents and was rejected. So, she self-published \u2014 and within months, agents were calling her.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of the many twists in the rise of McAfee, whose novel Diary of a Mad Fat Girl<\/em> began as a 99-cent e-book on Amazon.com and sprinted to a 10-week run on The New York Times<\/em> best seller list.<\/p>\n

McAfee, who said she made only pennies in the first week of sales as a self-published author, has been signed by Penguin for a three-book deal.
\nAnd the author, who first marketed her book among her Facebook friends, is now getting publicity from big-time traditional media outlets<\/p>\n

including USA Today, The Washington Post<\/em> and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution<\/em>. A New York agent is shuffling her through a 15-city book tour, including a stop at Square Books in Oxford last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just can\u2019t believe it,\u201d McAfee, a former Prentiss County Spanish teacher, said of her new-found popularity. \u201cIt\u2019s really unbelievable, but it\u2019s really exciting, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

McAfee grew up in Booneville and graduated from Ole Miss with an English degree. After earning her master\u2019s degree from the University of Alabama, she settled in Prentiss County as a teacher, but always had the idea for a novel in the back of her mind.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In 2010, she decided she\u2019d concentrate on writing the book.<\/div>\n

She started writing in earnest in March of that year, capturing the gossip, angst and drama most every woman encounters in small-town life.<\/p>\n

Her novel tells the story of Gracelia \u201cAce\u201d Jones, a (you guessed it) small-town schoolteacher. \u201cEverybody says, \u2018Write about what you know,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cSo I go \u2018OK, here you go, here\u2019s my character.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But the similarities between herself and the madcap events in the novel begin and end with the main character\u2019s description, she says. \u201cAce Jones is a chubby schoolteacher with a chiweenie (cross between a chihuahua and a dachshund), and I\u2019m a chubby schoolteacher with a chiweenie,\u201d she said. \u201cThe rest of it, I just made it all up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, the novel resonates with her readers, she said. \u201cI\u2019ve had so many people comment, from all over the country, to say, \u2018Are you writing about people in my town? I know these people.\u2019\u201d And that\u2019s the way I wanted it. I wanted normal people to relate to my
\ncharacter on a personal level.\u201d<\/p>\n

McAfee\u2019s path to success was paved not only with rejection letters from traditional literary agents, but with her own savvy marketing insight, and the use of social media.<\/p>\n

In her mail, among the rejection letters, were magazines \u2014 many of which, she noticed, had ads for the new Amazon Kindle e-reader on their back covers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told my husband, \u2018This is going to be the big gift this year.\u2019 And so I started doing a little research and I discovered that to self-publish, it\u2019s free. And it\u2019s so easy. And so I thought, instead of wasting all this time writing all these query letters (to literary agents), which I\u2019m clearly not any good at anyway, I\u2019m just going to finish up the book and self-publish it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s what really made it possible for me to do this, because there was never an actual hard copy,” she said. “There was just an e-book. It\u2019s definitely changing the publishing landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anticipating the popularity of the new e-readers, McAfee published her novel to Amazon on Christmas Day 2010.<\/p>\n

She sold nine copies the first week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI made 45 cents the first week \u2014 and I was so happy,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was such a great feeling just to have completed the book.\u201d<\/p>\n

As her book percolated in online storefronts, word spread among McAfee\u2019s Facebook friends, and then to friends of friends. Within months, McAfee found out through a stranger on Facebook that she\u2019d made The New York Times<\/em> best seller list, which set her career into overdrive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started getting emails from agents, and emails from publishers, and that\u2019s when things really took off,\u201d she said.
\nMcAfee, who sowed her success in social media channels, is now reaping the whirlwind. She has signed on to not only write novels, but maintain a steady online presence. \u201cIt\u2019s not just writing the book,” she said.<\/p>\n

“\u2018You\u2019ve got to be on Facebook more. You\u2019ve got to be on Twitter more. You need to blog three times a week.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

McAfee said that as soon as editing was completed for the print edition of her first novel, she set to work on the sequel. She said she is nearly finished with her second novel featuring Ace Jones, aptly titled Happily Ever Madder: More Adventures of the Mad Fat Girl<\/em>. \u201cThe title kind of says it all,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be more Ace Jones adventures.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, despite the deadlines and the stress, McAfee is living her own literary adventure. \u201cIt\u2019s beyond a full time job,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it\u2019s the best full-time job ever. It\u2019s been great.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Stephanie McAfee (BA 00) began writing her first novel, she reached out to literary agents and was rejected. So, she self-published \u2014 and within months, agents were calling her. That\u2019s one of the many twists in the rise of McAfee, whose novel Diary of a Mad Fat Girl began as a 99-cent e-book onRead the story …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nAlumni Profile: Stephanie McAfee - Ole Miss News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/news.olemiss.edu\/alumni-profile-stephanie-mcafee\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alumni Profile: Stephanie McAfee - Ole Miss News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When Stephanie McAfee (BA 00) began writing her first novel, she reached out to literary agents and was rejected. 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