Straight From the Mouth of Pamela Samuels Young, Author of 'Abuse of Discretion'

Pamela Samuels Young has always abided by the philosophy that you create the change you want to see. She set giant-sized goals and used her talent, tenacity and positive outlook to accomplish them. Pamela consequently achieved success in both the corporate arena and literary world simultaneously.

An author, attorney and motivational speaker, Pamela spent fifteen years as Managing Counsel for Toyota, specializing in labor and employment law. While still practicing law, Pamela began moonlighting as a mystery writer because of the absence of women and people of color depicted in the legal thrillers she read. She is now an award-winning author of multiple legal thrillers, including Anybody’s Daughter, which won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Fiction, and her new release, Abuse of Discretion, a shocking look at the juvenile justice system in the context of a troubling teen sexting case.

Prior to her legal career, spent several years as a television news writer and associate producer. She received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from USC and earned a master’s degree in broadcasting from Northwestern University and a law degree from UC Berkeley School of Law. She is a frequent speaker on the topics of teen sexting, child sex trafficking, self-empowerment and fiction writing.

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About the Book:

A Kid’s Curiosity … A Parent’s Nightmare

The award-winning author of "Anybody’s Daughter" is back with an addictive courtroom drama that

gives readers a shocking look inside the juvenile criminal justice system.

Graylin Alexander is a model fourteen-year-old. When his adolescent curiosity gets the best of him, Graylin finds himself embroiled in a sexting scandal that threatens to ruin his life. Jenny Ungerman, the attorney hired to defend Graylin, is smart, confident and committed. She isn’t thrilled, however, when ex-prosecutor Angela Evans joins Graylin’s defense team. The two women instantly butt heads. Can they put aside their differences long enough to ensure Graylin gets justice?

Unbeknownst to Angela, her boyfriend Dre is wrestling with his own drama. Someone from his past wants him dead. For Dre, his response is simple—kill or be killed.

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Thanks for letting us interrogate you!  Can you give us a go-for-the-gut answer as to why you wanted to be an author?

After finishing law school, I became an avid reader of legal thrillers. I enjoyed John Grisham and other authors, but I never came across any characters in those books who looked like me. So one morning, I decided to write a legal thriller with an African-American female lead based on one of my real-life cases. In the process, I discovered my passion!

Tell us (we won’t tell promise!) is it all it’s cracked up to be?  I mean what are the perks and what are the demands?

The perks are getting lots of love from readers. The demands are not being able to write books fast enough. I dream of writing three books a year.

Which route did you take – traditional or self-published – and can you give us the nitty gritty low down on what’s that like?

My first two books were traditionally published. My third book, Murder on the Down Low, was rejected by nine publishing houses, which forced me to self-publish. I’m now a successful indie author with ten books to my credit. When two major publishers who rejected my earlier books later solicited me, it truly validated my decision to take charge of my own writing career. It was also quite validating when Anybody’s Daughter won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Fiction against four traditionally published authors, including New York Times bestselling authors Walter Mosley and Terry McMillan. In the words of Tyler Perry, “We don’t have to wait for someone to green light our projects. We can create our own intersections.”  

What’s the snarkiest thing you can say about the publishing industry?

Publishing houses are famous for passing up good writers and then coming for them offering peanuts after the writers have done all the hard work building their careers. No thanks was my response.

Tell us for real what your family feels about you spending so much time getting your book written, polished, edited, formatted, published, what have you?

Hey, they understand. They’re just thrilled to be able to tell people they have a writer in the family. Besides, they don’t see me much anyway, LOL!

What was the craziest or insane thing that happened to you in the book publishing process?

The spine of one of my books had the titled misspelled. I was at a book signing when a friend pointed it out to me. I was horrified! It was my cover designer’s misspelling, but my error for not double-checking the spine. Luckily, I got it fixed right away. I also printed up some labels and covered the spine so well, you couldn’t even tell the label was there.

How about the social networks?  Which ones do you believe help and which ones do you wish you could avoid?

I love Facebook because of the immediate feedback. When I make a post asking my friends and family to check out my new book, they always follow through. I haven’t had much success from any of the others.

Book sales.  Don’t you just love them (or lack of?)?  How are you making the sales happen for you?

With 10 books to my credit, I’ve learned that the best way to keep the sales coming is to keep the books coming. I regret having a two-year gap between two of my books, but I was practicing law at the time and there was no way I could hammer out a book because of my crazy busy schedule. Now that I’m writing full-time, my goal is to release a minimum of two book a year.

What is one thing you’d like to jump on the rooftop and scream about?

Today’s nasty political climate. It literally scares me to death!

Okay, too much sugar for you today!  Here’s a nice cup of Chamomile tea and come on over and sit under the cabana and watch the waves roll in.  Now…can you tell us what you love about being a published author and how all those things above doesn’t matter because it’s all part of the whole scheme of things and you wouldn’t have it any other way?

I love being able to both entertain and educate readers about important social issues such as the teen sexting epidemic (Abuse of Discretion), child sex trafficking (Anybody’s Daughter) and gender discrimination (Attorney-Client Privilege). Now that I’ve released my first erotic romance, Unlawful Desires, I’m also enjoying the opportunity to explore my wild side.  But I didn’t want to use my real name, LOL. So I came up with the cool pen name Sassy Sinclair.