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Thanks to all of you who entered the Show vs. Tell contest! I was impressed with the entries and can see everyone really working on “showing” in their writing. If you want to tell us about your experience with this exercise, leave a comment here. Was it harder than you thought it would be? Did…

Before I was an agent, I was a freelance editor. A lot of people ask me how to get into freelance editing, but I never quite know how to answer. My freelance career grew from my contacts and experience working in the publishing industry for a dozen years. It grew organically out of what I…

I have this quote from businessman Warren Buffet that I keep posted where I can see it often: When you find yourself in a hole, the best thing you can do is stop digging. It sounds ridiculously simple, right? But easier said than done. Right now, I have to tell you: I’m in a hole.…

For years I’ve been in the habit of getting up early before my family wakes so I can have some focused time alone in the peace and quiet of the breaking dawn. I’m definitely a morning person and this is my favorite part of the day, time for prayer and reading and journaling. Time for…

Several people have commented lately about how their friends and family don’t quite understand the process of publishing. Teri wrote: “If you even mention an agent or editor is looking at a proposal, they want to know when the book is coming out! Or since my family tends to be supportive, they talk about having…

I was talking with one of my clients who is currently in the midst of a two-book contract with a major CBA house. This is her first book deal and although she’d spent many years networking with authors and publishing types, she’s been shocked by how much she didn’t know about publishing before she signed…

I recently spoke with a woman who was frustrated with her writing journey. She hadn’t been published although she’d been toiling for many years. She was working on a new project, an exploration of the idea that God doesn’t always “show up” for us in the ways we want or expect Him to. She felt…

I mentioned last week that I’m trying to write more posts for the intermediate or published author… and I’ve decided I’m also going to try and include more posts about craft. You know, the actual process and technique of writing. So today I want to talk about self-editing. Specifically: cutting. One of the things I’ve…

That is the question I’m getting a lot these days. Many authors are being advised that they must have a blog as the first step to marketing themselves. But I think that advice is getting outdated. Here’s why: → According to Technorati, there are nearly 113 million active blogs. That’s not a typo. Considering there…

I have an agent and a novel currently out on submission. The agent asked if I had anything for her to look at. I sent her another manuscript. She sent a two word rejection: “Not unique.” This tells me she didn’t read it because it has a number of unique plot twists. My question is,…

What a month! More queries than ever before, but amazingly, I’m keeping up with them. If you’ve sent me an email query and I haven’t responded, that means I don’t have it, so please try again. If you’ve sent a hardcopy via U.S. mail (in which case you’re probably not reading my blog), I haven’t…

Lisa wrote with this question: When you request a proposal at a writers conference and ask for the first five chapters and a synopsis, is that all you want? Or do you want a market analysis, character sketches, etc.? This is a great question, because it once again points out the need for clear communication.…

Many of you are working on your first contracted book. (Yeah!) Prior to your publishing deal, you may have been through countless edits and revisions of your book (or books). But you’ve never had to do it under deadline, and you’ve never done it with the input of your own publishing house editor. So this…

I’ve been writing a lot of posts geared toward the unpublished author. But I know many of you are published, or at least agented, and hopefully the rest of you are getting closer to publication, so you have questions about the process after you receive an offer from a publisher. I’m going to start interspersing…