Before I launch into today’s juicy buffet of meaty topics, a quick reminder: next Wednesday, November 25 is the deadline for submissions to the Author! Author! Inspirational Writerly Quotes contest. It’s easy to enter, and I’m genuinely excited to see all of your favorite keeping-the-faith quotes. For contest rules, click here. Some additional incentive, for …
Those of you who have been hanging around Author! Author! for a while may well recognize this gorgeous image from the Book of Hours. I like to yank it out of the mothballs every now and again, because it is such an accurate depiction of how so many aspiring writers view the work of querying …
Last time, I pointed out that while many, many nice writers’ conference attendees fret away pre-pitching hours in worry over whether they might inadvertently offend an agent or editor. While a reasonably considerate writer can usually avoid this dreadful fate if s/he bears in mind that the goal of pitching is not to impress the …
Welcome back to the ongoing Author! Author! series on various stripes of censorship and how they affect writers. As those of you who have enjoyed these posts in previous weeks are already aware, in an effort to provoke serious thought and spur some interesting conversation, I have blandished a select group of some of the …
Continue reading “Marriage Rights Fight Not Enough of a Conflict? by guest blogger Beren de Motier”
Happy Year of the Ox, everyone! We’re almost at the end of our very, very long examination of reasons agents tend to reject a submission on page 1, Can’t you feel the air buzzing with excitement? Haven’t you noticed the bees murmuring in their hives, the birds stopping in mid-air to gape, and every little …
I went to see THE PEARLFISHERS at the Seattle Opera again last night; since the tenor had been practically inaudible with the cast we saw the first time, we went back and saw the other, in which the baritone was practically inaudible. Oh, well, you can’t have everything — where would you put it? (As …
Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, everybody! I know it’s common to reduce all of the Reverend Dr.’s accomplishments to the March on Washington and the “I Have a Dream” speech (leaving out, say, the fact that he held the world’s record as most prolific registrar of voters for at least two decades), but if …
You know, the more I plow through the list of Idol first-page rejection reasons (if the very concept is news to you, please see the first post in this series.), the more obvious it is to me why it took me more than two years — an eternity in blogging time — to revisit it: these …
Revisiting my posts from a couple of years ago on reasons agents give for rejecting submissions on page 1, I notice that I have been feeling compelled to add quite a bit of commentary, so much so that they are essentially new posts (which is why I’ve stopped doing the boldfaced introductions, in case anyone …
I have been in one editing or writing meeting or another ALL day, I’ll have you know, the kind where various well-meaning, highly intelligent people quibble for 45 minutes over how a single sentence of text should be rendered. (Yes, professional writers and editors honestly do spend their time this way, more’s the pity, just …
Before I launch into the crux of today’s post, a bit of old business: yesterday, I mentioned that, contrary to my usual practice for this time of year, I’m not planning to spend January and February going over the ins and outs of entering literary contests. As pleased as I am when my readers do …
Yes, Virginia, that is indeed exactly what it says on the box: a massive grain of salt. You’re going to want to have it on hand for today’s installment in our series on reasons so many submitted manuscripts get rejected on page 1. How many is so many, you ask? Well, the actual percentage from agency …
Hello, campers – We open today with a pop quiz: quick, name all of these Supreme Court justices, as well as the presidents who appointed them. I’ll give you a minute, starting — now! Just kidding. No one seems to remember that Gerald Ford appointed John Paul Stevens. Speaking of judgments, I didn’t mean to …
Happy Labor Day, all! I was tickled to find this image from the Book of Hours to gladden our hearts today, because it is such an accurate depiction of how so many aspiring writers view the work of querying these days: a long, toilsome effort aimed toward impressing the powerful folks in the white castle …
Continue reading “Query letter troubleshooting, part II: more toiling in the literary vineyard”
Hello, readers: As I mentioned earlier in the week, I’m taking this weekend off from posting, partially to gear up for next week’s series on how to pull together a submission packet, partially because the weather is REALLY nice outside at the moment, and partially because I’ve been simply heaping the blog with information over …
Sorry to have missed posting yesterday, campers, and during conference season, too: I had a lulu of a migraine, so my activities yesterday were limited to (a) moaning, (b) telling the cats to keep it DOWN, already, and (c) contemplating rolling over, then not doing it. Miserable stuff; I don’t recommend its cultivation. As my …
Continue reading “Working up the nerve to pitch — or to ask pointed questions, for that matter”
As we head into the final days of prep before the Conference That Shall Not Be Named (which happens to be my local one), I’m feeling pretty good about our collective level of pitch preparedness, aren’t you? We’ve covered acres of ground over the last few weeks: we’ve gone over how to narrow down your …
Today, I am pleased to present the last of my holiday treats for all of the members of the Author! Author! community, and let me tell you, it’s a peach. Longtime blog reader Thomas DeWolf, whose fascinating book, Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History …
Continue reading “My Path to Publication (so far) by guest blogger Thomas Norman DeWolf”
For the past few days, I’ve been chatting with recently self-published authors Mary Hutchings Reed and Beren deMotier about what prompted their decisions to bring their books out themselves, rather than pursing the traditional agent + publishing house path, and what a writer who was considering such a step might want to know going into the process. Yesterday, I …
Continue reading “So you’re considering self-publishing, part IV: fiction”
Yesterday, I began a discussion about self-publishing with two authors who have taken the plunge this year, fellow blogger and memoirist Beren deMotier and novelist Mary Hutchings Reed. Both are prolific, award-winning writers who have been fighting the good fight along with the rest of us for many years, so who better to ask the …
Continue reading “So you’re considering self-publishing, part II: how does one go about it, anyway?”