Rachelle Gardner

I spent the last several days at the ACFW conference in Minneapolis (along with about 600 of my closest friends) and once again my overriding feeling is… I’m tired. I’m sure everyone who went is feeling the same thing. It was terrific meeting lots of my blog readers and I’m glad many of you made…

I promise I’ll blog about ACFW sometime today…

Earlier this week, a writer sent me this response to a rejection letter: As a first time author I can’t tell you how much I am humbled for the kind and thoughtful responses from you agents. You guys are really nice people out there…and God bless you for the kind words. Wow. It really struck…

I’ve written before about the agenting process… culling through submissions, deciding what to represent, getting books polished and ready for submission, submitting them to publishers, negotiating contracts, etc. etc. But I think when the rubber meets the road is when I know I have a good book that people will like, but publishers aren’t biting.…

Last Wednesday in response to my call for readers to contribute their own additions to the writers conference checklist, one wise person wrote, “Don’t make it all about you.” I had been thinking of including that exact tidbit in my original list because it’s so important. But I ended up leaving it off my list…

Many of us will be heading to the ACFW conference in about a week, so I wanted to give you a handy checklist of things to make sure you bring. Even if you’re not attending ACFW, you might find this useful sometime in the future for another conference. a Some concise and fascinating answers to…

I had a conversation with Sue Brower, Senior Acquisitions Editor for fiction at Zondervan, about the Mt. Hermon contest, and she had some clarifications for us. First, there was a question from a blog commenter about ChristianManuscriptSubmission.com, a service that Zondervan sometimes uses to find fiction. Sue says, “the writer still has a better chance…

Passing along a press release… Zondervan and Mount Hermon Writer’s ConferenceSponsor Competition for Aspiring Fiction AuthorsWinner Receives $10,000 Publishing Contract GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., September 3, 2008 – Unpublished Christian fiction writers, get your manuscripts ready. Zondervan, a world leader in Christian communications, today announced All About the Story, a writing competition for first-time novelists. The…

Today I thought I’d answer a few recent questions about the process of agenting… When you read a query, can you tell from ten pages or less how much work might be involved in making a manuscript publishable if it’s not already? When I read the sample pages in the query, I’m asking myself more…

Chatty Kelly asked a common question on Friday: Why would you query an agent over a publisher? What are the pros & cons? Okay, in the first place, fewer and fewer publishers are accepting unagented submissions. So if you want to get published, it’s becoming less viable to do it without an agent. Agents are…

Several of you have been curious about the editorial process inside a publishing house. Rosslyn asked:What is the role of freelance editors in the publishing process these days? I’ve noticed cases recently in which published authors had in-house editors AND freelance editors working on their novels. Do publishing houses hire these freelancers, or do the…

Lately I’ve received quite a few questions like this: So, let’s say I submitted a proposal that was requested by an agent. While waiting for the agent to respond, the novel was significantly improved (not just a few spelling errors, but bigger things like tightening, deepening the POV, author affiliations/platform, etc). Would you suggest a…

First off, I’m still feeling like I need a vacation from my vacation. I’m working like crazy playing “catchup” and hope to be back to normal in the next couple of days. Phew! As for my micro-contest yesterday (yeah, the one with no prize), I asked you to guess how many unsolicited submissions (queries) were…

I’m back! This vacation was… well, fantastic. I can hardly explain it. I had an amazing time. It’s going to be difficult getting back into work mode. But here I am, nose to the grindstone as usual. So, I have a couple of things for you today. First, a teeny-tiny contest. It’s so small, it’s…