Posts

Good morning and happy Monday! Let’s address some of the platform issues that have been coming my way lately: Q: If you have developed this wonderful platform and can do all the promotion you suggest, why would you want to give the lion’s share of the profits to a publisher? Why not use a Publish…

Okay, I know you think I hate you just because you write about zombies and martians and the apocalypse. I don’t hate anyone, I swear! And to prove it, I have a special gift today just for you. It’s a blog I found out about: “The Spectacle,” on which “Authors talk about writing speculative fiction…

Wow, I did not expect such a response to today’s post about rejection letters. Hmm, I wonder why writers are interested in this topic? 😉 I’ll spend some time mulling your comments, suggestions and questions, and will probably write a follow-up post next week. Meanwhile, thanks for your comments. This really helps me understand what…

Let’s talk about rejection letters! Lately I’ve been thinking about how writers wish they had a “reason” when agents reject their work. I’ve explained before (ad nauseum) all the reasons we can’t always give reasons. (And by the way, even though my policy states no response = no interest, I still respond to as many…

As you know, Friday was QueryDay on Twitter. I think it went exceptionally well. Lots of great questions from authors, lots of agents and editors chiming in with answers. An incredible wealth of information was passed around! Several people asked me to compile my tweets from the day. So here they are. Just a whole…

(Oops, technical difficulties, my blog didn’t post properly at the scheduled time. Sorry!) If you’ve been reading agent blogs and you follow them on Twitter, you probably know by now that most agents want you to follow their posted submission guidelines when submitting. A significant proportion of rejections happen because the query doesn’t follow the…

I always get questions about manuscript submission services like Authorlink or Writer’s Edge or Christian Manuscript Submissions. (Also known as manuscript display websites.) These are services that show your writing to agents and editors through a website and/or monthly report that displays your logline, synopsis, and a sample of your manuscript. Most of these services…

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…

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…