The Woodlands, TX -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/02/2013 -- Lisa Renée Jones was CEO of the highly acclaimed LRJ Staffing Services, with offices all over Texas and in Nashville, getting a 6-figure salary and recognition from the Austin Business Journal, Dallas Woman magazine and the #7 spot on Entrepreneur magazine’s Top 10 Growing Women-owned Business List, when she did the unthinkable – followed her heart, took a giant leap of faith into the unknown…and never looked back!
Not that the road was easy – far from it - but Lisa’s passion to become a writer was a hunger in her soul that wouldn’t quit. Raising two boys and caring for her father-in-law, she decided to sell her business and as she looked for a way to pay the bills in the meantime, she stumbled upon an article about buying and selling merchandise from storage auctions – years before it became cool and popular enough to have a TV show about it.
The turning point came when Lisa’s boyfriend Diego lost his job. As she was selling off every valuable item she owned to pay bills, he bought an auctioned storage unit. Upset at first over what he paid, she soon changed her mind when she saw the profit they netted but it was ‘dirty work’ rummaging through often disgusting items, trying to find something of value.
The inspiration behind Lisa’s bestselling Inside Out series came when Diego found a journal in a box from one of the units. Engrossed in the details of the journal writer’s life, he suggested that Lisa write a mystery using the idea of a journal found in a storage unit. Already writing around-the-clock just to survive, Lisa wrote a proposal, presented it to one of her editors and as they were waiting for his boss to read it, her Tall, Dark and Deadly series took off!
Doing really well at this point, Lisa took the journal story to another New York editor but declined both his lowball offer and the changes he wanted to make to the story, believing she could do better. She found an agent with a strong foreign rights department and the whole project finally came together. When the series was released there were many publishers involved in the bidding – and she closed on the deal 10 days after release! There followed movie and TV interest and talks with producers, but it was decided the TV deal was the best for this series.
After the first book in the series was optioned for television, Lisa teamed up with Dan and Laura Dotson, stars of Storage Wars, to present Behind Closed Doors: An Inside Out Novella; an exciting free serialized mystery that is appearing on storagetreasures.com .
Lisa is quick to credit Amazon with helping her get established and giving her the confidence to refuse that first deal (especially since the editor’s proposed changes were the very things the TV folks liked most about the series) or she wouldn’t be the success she is today! While this amazing chain of events began with a journal found in a storage unit, it became the inspiration for the ‘story behind the story’ that changed Lisa Renèe Jones’ life forever.
Please visit: http://www.lisareneejones.com for more information.
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Monica Foster
Ascot Media Group
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