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This week I’ve been writing on topics that were brought to the forefront of my mind when I was at the ACFW conference and spoke with dozens of writers about their books. Today I want to talk about your protagonist, or MC (main character). I’ll make this brief: Your MC must be proactive and make…

One thing I’ve noticed lately in fiction pitches – verbal pitches or queries – is that some writers want to tell all about the theme or the emotional journey of the story, but they have a hard time conveying the actual story. Every novel has a theme. There’s a character arc, in which a character…

Over the weekend when I was at the conference, my ten-year-old had a gymnastics meet which I was bummed to miss, but Brian texted me her scores on each event, and he took video so I could see her performances. (I put one on YouTube.) Now, if you watch my daughter doing gymnastics, you might…

I just came from ACFW, the annual conference of American Christian Fiction Writers. It’s a large and terrific writers conference, with top notch writing courses and plenty of opportunity for networking. This year there were something like 540 writers attending, and 60 faculty and staff. Donald Maass gave an all-day seminar on opening day, and…

We started this month with my birthday (a shameless self-promotion, I realize, but I can’t help it, I just love my birthday). Let’s end the week celebrating another birthday of sorts: The day YOUR latest book was released. If your book came out in the last year, tell us about it and include the Amazon…

Anonymous wrote: I recently fired my book agent for a number of valid reasons and her response was to say that I OWE HER thousands of dollars because she spent time on my project (never submitted it to publishers because we kept rewriting the book proposal because she kept changing her mind about what she…

A big thank you to the nearly 180 entrants in my guest blog contest! It wasn’t easy, but I’ve finally had a chance to choose my Guest Bloggers for the rest of the year. (See A Blog Challenge for You.) Here are the guest posts I’ve chosen (twelve instead of ten): Reesha: Christian Art –…

So here we are on September 11th. Many things have happened on this date in history. Perhaps some of you were even born or got married on this date. But I think we all carry with us a very powerful memory of September 11th, 2001. Let’s send up a prayer for all whose lives were…

Shelli asked: in your experience – what is the average advance $ amount? debuts vs others? I think it’s misleading and unhelpful to talk about “average” advances. All that matters is your advance. If your advance is far below the average, you’ll be bummed and it will take some of the joy away from getting…

I’m back from the long holiday & birthday weekend… thanks for all the great birthday comments yesterday and thanks for the 181 responses to my Guest Blog Challenge! It’s going to take some time to get through them, so please be patient. Hope your holiday was terrific! Today I’m going to discuss the cold, hard…

Today is Labor Day. Plus, yesterday was my birthday and I’m getting really, really old. Don’t you think I deserve a day off? Yep, I do too. See you tomorrow!.

**Please note, blog contest ends tonight! See last Friday’s post for details. You may have noticed from some of my posts that sometimes this job gets a little frustrating (like any job). If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile or if you follow me on Twitter, you know I love my job, so that’s…

One of the most common questions I hear about CBA is why it exists in the first place. (CBA means “Christian Booksellers Association” but refers to the entire Christian publishing industry including publishers, authors, agents, bookstores, etc.) Many are concerned that it means Christians are trying to stay set apart. Others wonder about the value…

Catherine M wrote: “I know you can send out multiple queries, but what if there are three agents who have asked to see your manuscript after a verbal pitch at a conference? Do you send to all three?” The protocol is always the same. If you’re querying multiple agents at once, simply mention that fact…