Now that conference season has wound to a close, many of you are probably poring over agent and editor guides, trying to figure out whom to query. Isn’t it annoying that every single one of them seems to ask for something different? At the risk of seeming too basic, I thought it might be …
Let’s assume for the moment that you have done everything I spoke about in yesterday’s post: found a sterling feedback-giver or two (and actually listened to them!), and you feel that your manuscript is good to go. Then, mirabile dictu, after an admirable query, you have been asked to send a few chapters (or even …
Continue reading “The questions to ask about your work before you send it out”
Once you have sent off a great query letter, or made a fabulous pitch at a conference, you hit the jackpot: an agent asks to see your work. And you’ve got it made, right? Well, not necessarily, if your writing is not in apple-pie order. (And no, I don’t know where I picked up …
Continue reading “So they’ve asked you to send chapters – and a request for your help”
Hello, dear friends — Well, I’m in a much better mood than I was last week: I realized over the weekend that since I don’t own much of anything, it matters less if I’m sued over my memoir, A FAMILY DARKLY, than if I were well-to-do. If my publisher, which I believe IS well-to-do, …
Continue reading “Nonfiction book categories – and a cheerier Anne”
Okay, take a deep breath, boys and girls: we’re going to tackle the rest of the fiction book categories today. (Don’t worry, I’ll get back to that jolly interesting stuff about my memoir being the target for an ill-conceived lawsuit threat at the end of the post. I just didn’t want to leave all of …
Heavens — I got so wrapped up in my own saga that I almost forgot that I promised you a posting on book categories! To return to a theme from last week, labels, like standard formatting rules, are very important to agents and editors: if they can’t place your work within a conceptual box, chances …
Continue reading “Book categories — and yes, you have to pick one”
I am calmer today, thanks for asking; my sense of humor shows signs of only being sprained, rather than broken. If certain people want to launch frivolous lawsuits at my memoir because I tell the truth in it about someone who has been dead for 23 years, I have only two options: to make up …
Hi, gang — For the past week, I have been talking about various circumstances that might lead to a good author receiving a form letter rejection. (If you missed my thrilling guided tour of the query letter, see earlier postings.) I would like to emphasize that the problems I have been pointing out for the …
I’ve been talking for the last few days about rejection factors that are beyond your control, ones you would be well advised not to take personally. However, if after you have sent out dozens (or even hundreds) of query letters, you are receiving only rejections, form or not, it may be time to reexamine what …
Hey ho — Did you miss me? No, I didn’t take the long weekend off; as a matter of fact, I was working extra hard: I needed to do a final edit on my novel before my agent starts shopping it around. (Out comes the broken record again: most of the publishing industry was on …
Since this is the season for sending out your work to agents from the PNWA conference (or, indeed, other summer writing conferences), some of you may find yourself puzzled at the differential between the agent’s (or editor’s) warm face-to-face response to your pitch and the rather tepid communications submissions, even accepted ones, tend to generate. …
Continue reading “Top Ten Lies Agents and Editors Tell Hopeful Authors”
I have already gone through the overview and the target market in previous postings. Now on to the marketing plan, the part of the book proposal that both strikes the greatest fear into the hearts of first-time proposers, as well as the part that most often gets a cursory treatment. Agents and editors see a …
Continue reading “How to Write a Book Proposal, Part III: The Marketing Plan”
After I pulled together a winning entry for a contest within the course of a single working day, a number of writing friends asked me, in tones raging from outrage to wonder, some version of “How the hell did you pull THAT off?” Two matters seemed to strike these querants especially: how did I win …
Continue reading “The great leap of faith… and some practical advice on writing a synopsis”
The great thing about getting serious about being a writer – and yes, there ARE upsides to struggling for years on end – is that you can add so many nifty gadgets to your bag of writing tools, ones that will allow you to produce work quickly and revise it with dispatch. And how do …
Many of you are no doubt busy prepping your work to send out to agents and editors that you met at PNWA, or perhaps are gearing up for a second round, or working up nerve to send out queries before the end of the summer, so I thought it would be a good time to …
I am PNWA member Anne Mini, and I am going to be hanging out on this site to answer your questions about the writing life and the publication world for the foreseeable future. When the PNWA approached me to start blogging here, I was a bit nonplused. Yes, I won the Zola Award in 2004 …