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Most of you know that I came from an editorial background before I was an agent. I love working with authors on their books, and over the years I’ve developed the skills to help writers improve their writing, or present a more saleable book or proposal to editors. As a result, I sometimes have significant…

One of the most common things I hear from writers lately is, “You’ve told us a lot about what makes you say no to a book. Now tell us what makes you say yes.” So yesterday I wrote that I love when I can sense the writing is authentic and true. Today I want to…

Aren’t you glad that mountain lion is behind that chain link fence? I sure was. I was standing about eight feet away from her at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo when Brian snapped this pic. It has nothing to do with today’s post – I just like it. So… I have a few questions for you.…

The latest thing to hit the book marketing world is the book trailer. I’m sure you’ve seen them – short videos, typically 1 to 3 minutes, that advertise a book. You’ll find them on author websites, blogs, publisher websites, and bookselling sites. (You can visit Bookscreening.com to view lots of book trailers.) When I’m talking…

If you think things were starting to get crazy in publishing, the last week just turned everything upside down again. As you know, Apple introduced the long-awaited and much-hyped iPad (here’s a quick overview from PW), which looks to me like it’s going to live up to the hype. (Watch this video if you haven’t…

Like everyone else in this business, published authors included, I frequently receive emails asking for advice. Not specific advice, but sweeping, general requests for advice like: “How do I get published?” Usually the person writing has just finished writing either a novel or a memoir, and somehow they got my email address, and they want…

Awhile back, Nathan Bransford linked to this video, which I think is amusing. It’s a montage of all these people on reality TV shows insisting they’re there to win the prize, not to make friends. If you watch any reality TV, you know “I’m not here to make friends” is a common attempt to justify…

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…