Rachelle Gardner

Happy Monday and I hope you all had a nice Easter weekend! Today I want to talk about that age-old platitude, “Don’t take it personally.” I think writers probably hear this a lot when agents and/or editors decline to take on their work. But I don’t think you hear what we mean when we say…

I hope everyone is having a great Easter weekend. We’re having quite the snowfall today, several inches and still falling. Weird! But hey, it’s Colorado so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m writing this on my Blackberry so this is actually just a test post. Back tomorrow!

No regular post today in honor of Good Friday. Have a Happy Easter and I’ll see you on Monday. He was despised and rejected by men,a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.Like one from whom men hide their faceshe was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmitiesand carried our…

Today I’m going to give my thoughts on several questions I’ve been asked the last couple of weeks. Kathleen Elizabeth asked: Should you be basically finished writing your novel before you begin the search for an agent? → If you’re previously unpublished: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. The novel should be finished, edited, polished and…

Sorry for this very long post about nothing. I don’t blame you if you want to skip this one, but I had a few things on my mind tonight that I just needed to get out. Last week I spent some time reading the AgentFail post on the Bookends, LLC blog. It’s not that I’m…

Many of you have written that you’re not getting an immediate automated response to your query. I just found out why. The responses are generated through Outlook, and they’re only sent when Cathy, our office assistant, has Outlook running. Since she’s part-time, this isn’t a whole lot of hours each week. So if you send…

Over the last year, I’ve given you numerous examples of things not to say in a query letter. One of the most unhelpful things you can say in your query is something like, “my book will win the Nobel prize” or “it’s bound to be a blockbuster bestseller.” Or even the more restrained, “This book…

I originally wrote this post two weeks ago, and I’d planned one of my “your turn to rant” days. But recently I’ve noticed there seems to be a lot of negativity being expressed in the blogosphere. Everyone needs a chance to rant, but Jessica at Bookends gave writers a chance to rant about agents this…

(The Real Deal This Time) 1. Expect them to have a strong track record of selling books to legitimate publishers and/or experience in the publishing industry.→ Check Publisher’s Marketplace→ Ask around, ask other authors, ask others in the biz. Find out what books they’ve represented and check the acknowledgements page of those books.→ If they…

People are always asking me, What are the signs of a good agent? What should I expect? Always one to provide answers, here is my list of the 10 main things you should expect from your literary agent. 1. Expect your agent to have a cell phone from all four major carriers so no matter…

What’s the difference between a person with a story to tell, and a writer? What’s the difference between a person with something important to share, and a writer? This is a tough one. I honestly think that everyone – yes, every single person – has a story to tell. Everyone has something valuable to say.…

Last April, Michael Hyatt ran a series of blog posts about the importance of the Competitive Advantage. I can’t possibly summarize it all, but there are a couple of really important thoughts I want to share with you. It seems the biggest worry of the unpublished author is (understandably), “Will there be room for the…

Today we’re going to talk about platform for fiction writers. As I mentioned a couple of days ago, a platform isn’t necessary in order to sell your novel to a publisher (although it’s a definite plus). Publishers and agents are still looking for great stories. If you’ve written a wonderful novel, everything else is icing.…

I’ve had some people tell me lately that they’re starting to hate that word platform. I’ll let you in on a little secret: I feel the same way. I sometimes wish the whole idea of platform would just go away and we’d be free to simply publish the books we love. Like you, I wish…