You’ve got a query letter. You know what to put in your author bio. You’ve even looked up how many pages of your manuscript this particular agent you’re querying wants to see with your query. What’s missing? That’s right. Laura Mosko, Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market Editor, has outlined… Read more“Telling your story in shorthand: the synopsis”
Category: Help
Understanding writer credentials
We’re talking this month about the mechanics of the publishing industry: understanding author bios, understanding freelance independent editors, understanding agents. So today let’s talk about understanding writer credentials. There’s something very important that you should know. Dashiell Hammett wasn’t the world’s greatest writer. He wasn’t even the world’s greatest self-marketer…. Read more“Understanding writer credentials”
6 Steps to Tangling with the Publishing Windmill
This is the story about what happened after that Writers Conference in 1996 at which I became friends with the brilliant novelists Lucia Orth and Sasha Troyan. Actually, a lot of things happened, one of them being that I went home and completely rewrote my current novel yet once again…. Read more“6 Steps to Tangling with the Publishing Windmill”
Linking to the Writers’ Emergency Assistance Fund
December’s mania is the Season of Giving. Thank you to Susan Johnston of The Urban Muse for promoting the Writers’ Emergency Assistance Fund. This fund is a 501(c)(3) charitable trust made up of donations from writers like you to help freelance nonfiction writers in times of acute financial distress. As… Read more“Linking to the Writers’ Emergency Assistance Fund”
Querying with a little help from Writer’s Digest
Chuck Sambuchino of Writer’s Digest runs a regular feature in which he interviews literary agents. This week it’s children’s literature agent Erin Murphy of Erin Murphy Literary Agency. He also runs a Successful Queries feature showing actual, real-life queries that actually, in real life, worked. And, finally, Chuck got 20… Read more“Querying with a little help from <em>Writer’s Digest</em>”
Rejecting rejection
We were supposed to talk about rejection again yesterday. But I knew you didn’t want to. Who wants to talk about rejection? Right before Halloween? So instead I called up Craig Bartlett, Creator/Executive Producer of Nickelodeon’s Hey, Arnold!, author of the Hey, Arnold! children’s books, and now Creator/Executive Producer of… Read more“Rejecting rejection”
Justifying author bios
Have you ever wondered why agents want to see an author bio paragraph in a query letter that is—as least ostensibly—supposed to be entirely about selling them on one particular book? They don’t want to hear about your other unpublished novels or ideas, but they do want to know whether… Read more“Justifying author bios”
Querying
I try to stay up on the literary blogosphere. I read Twitter (never thought I would, but I do find a lot of links there). I check out posts on writing and querying and publishing. And I notice a remarkable thing—not a recent thing—but a stunning thing, when you think… Read more“Querying”
Getting rejected
Acceptance/Rejection. Two sides of the very same coin. Welcome to the publishing world. Please note: Not, “Welcome to the writing world!” Publishing—Writing. Writing—Publishing. Two different words. Two different activities. Two different universes. There is one guaranteed way to avoid literary rejection, and that is not to seek literary acceptance. It’s… Read more“Getting rejected”