Rachelle Gardner

Believe it or not, I occasionally get emails from people who are interested in becoming a literary agent. (Don’t laugh, I’m not making this up.) Why anyone would want to join the ranks of the hated and maligned poor stepchildren of the literary world, I don’t know. Maybe the same reason some people become lawyers.…

So here’s my response to Chuck’s post yesterday: Personally I wouldn’t favor the kind of fee structure he proposed. But I thought Chuck did a great job of thinking outside the box and proposing some options, and I liked the idea of putting it out there to stimulate some discussion. (Chuck’s not even an agent,…

Editor, Guide to Literary Agents Would You Pay More For An Agent? Money. It’s always a touchy topic—in any environment—and no one’s really started an intelligent discussion on agents and commissions … until now. About a year ago was the first time I heard an agent discussing a change to her commission structure. Wait—what? A…

Since we all deal with so many pieces of email everyday, I think it’s important to be able to use it efficiently and effectively. Many people don’t use email in a professional capacity very often because their job doesn’t call for it; if this is you, it might be helpful to go over the basics…

So our poll on Friday (see sidebar) led to some spectacularly predictable results. Exciting! It appears we find out about books mostly through various recommendations, either online or from friends or acquaintances. Otherwise known as word of mouth. We also find a lot of our books through browsing the stacks (physical or virtual) and picking…

Lately, we at WordServe have been trying to analyze some of our clients’ book sales in comparison with the amount of online marketing the author and publisher put into it. It’s not scientific, of course, but we’ve been trying to determine whether there’s any correlation between the number of Google hits for an author, and…

Many times on this blog, I’ve answered the question of why you, a writer (singular), might need an agent (also singular). I addressed it in posts such as 10 Things to Expect from an Agent and Earning Our Keep. Agent Nathan Bransford gave a terrific run down on what agents do, here and my client…

Yesterday I speculated on one aspect of the future of books, the idea of how technology will (or won’t) affect the presentation of a book. Today my speculations are more about the market and the changing perceived value of a book. One thing that concerns me about our current Internet culture is that it’s conditioning…

Last week Publishers Lunch featured a guide to the latest eReaders coming down the pike (here). It’s fascinating and makes me think of all kinds of possibilities for the future. The new readers will have terrific uses in business, for games, for keeping up on news, for editors and others in publishing, and many more.…

I’ve been thinking about all the information for writers available now on the internet. It’s great for writers because although getting published has never been more challenging, there has never been so much information available about how to do it. But there are so many people giving advice that it must get overwhelming sometimes. Getting…

Today we have a glimpse of my daily mailbag. Er, inbox. The following is an example of some recent correspondence with a writer I didn’t know. Hi Rachelle. I have a problem and I need your help. I’ve been writing a novel for nine years, pouring sweat, blood, and tears into it. Recently an acquaintance…

Each year on the blog, I choose ten books from my personal bookshelf to give to my readers. They’re all books I’ve read, enjoyed, and want to pass along for others to enjoy. (I have multiple copies of some of of them, so I’m keeping one for myself.) So here’s how you get one of…

[I’m taking a blogging break, so this is an encore presentation of a previous post.]The other day I was talking with @BrianKGardner about the conversations I have with writers and all the emails I send, trying to be encouraging while letting them know their project is not right for our agency, or their writing isn’t…

[I’m taking a blogging break, so this is an encore presentation of a previous post.]Lately I’ve seen a lot of writer blogs that speak poignantly about the pain of repeated rejections, and how it sometimes makes it hard to stay the course. Why do we keep writing? Why do we stay in this business? If…