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Frustrated by Rejection or No Response? Try This
Last week I wrote about authors who send agents submissions despite the fact those agents clearly state that they don’t represent those categories. When this happens, I sense one of three things from the author: exuberance, ignorance, or frustration. Exuberance An author who’s been successful for decades still can be exuberant about her work. That’s not what I mean here. In this case, the author …
When You’re Too Tired to Be Creative
Sleep deprivation is at an all-time high in our nation. So many of us feel tired and drained from the time we crawl out of bed at dawn until we fall back into it late at night. If it’s not a lack of sleep, it’s just being weary or fatigued. Sometimes because of illness, sometimes because of stress, sometimes because of just dealing with an angry and vitriolic nation. I mean, have you EVER seen …
Life Hands You A Platform
Every writer’s conference or gathering includes at least one presentation about developing or maintaining an author-marketing platform. Social Media, public speaking, blogging, newsletters…everything working together to establish and support your personalized and unique author “brand.” This agency and other publishing blogs address various elements of the issue on a regular basis. If you are …
When Proposing a Series of Novels
“Are today’s publishers more interested in an individual novel or a trilogy? Also, when submitting a proposal for the completed first novel in a planned trilogy, is it better to focus on the first novel or give an overview of the complete trilogy? Is there an upper limit to how many books should be in a series?” These are some excellent questions submitted by both Peter and …
Do You Really Want to Change Our Minds?
Agents know how difficult it is to break in to publishing, to keep your stride as a midlist author, and to stay on top once you’re there. We realize where you’re coming from when you send us something we say we don’t represent, thinking it’s so wonderful we might change our minds. Maybe it is that wonderful. Maybe we might change our minds. But is that what you really want? Let’s look at two …
How To Decide What You Will and Won’t Do with Your Time
I hear it all the time: “So many things are vying for my time. How do I decide, and how do I do it all and still write??” Many of us struggle to know what we should be doing with our time. And there are so many things we can do, most of which seem right and noble and even godly, and many of which take time away from being able to do this task of writing. Before you decide where to spend your time, …
Writing the Deeper Story
I realize this will probably date me, but I sincerely enjoyed a popular radio feature by Paul Harvey called, “The Rest of the Story.” I assume some reading this post today also remember it. For generations, the venerable radio commentator, who passed away in 2009 at the age of 90, told a little known story about a well-known person or event, only revealing the subject of the story at the end of …
Audio, Audio, Wherefore Art Thou Audio?
“I’ve heard that audio rights are never given to the author in the contract because that is how the publisher makes more money. Is this true? And if you lose the audio rights, do you lose all control? Let’s say for instance, do you have any say in who reads your story or is that completely out of your hands? Do your writers hold onto their audio rights in your publishing negotiations?” …