Blog Archive

  • Reader Question: On Self-Publishing

    Nov 14, 2014

    Hello! I have a long, rather wordy question for you about self-publishing. Say I’ve written a book, polished it up and gotten it as close to publishable as I think possible. Following preliminary letters to agents who would accept my genre, I send the requested portion of the manuscript out to all the agents with […]

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  • Reader Question: When to Say When

    Nov 13, 2014

    This actually came up as a comment on a blog post I wrote about Cutting the Apron Strings. In the comments the reader asked, “Is there a point where you should give up on querying a book?” I think the logical answer to this question is yes, but then I think back to the story […]

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  • Senseless Queries

    Nov 12, 2014

    Recently I had a rash of queries that I couldn’t make any sense of. It was so bad that I started to wonder if maybe I hadn’t had enough caffeine and it was me and not the authors. When writing anything–your book, your query, this blog–we sometimes know exactly what we’re thinking and what we’re […]

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  • Dissecting the Query

    Nov 11, 2014

    I feel like I’ve written so much on queries over the years that there isn’t anything more I could possibly say. In some ways I feel like the subject is old news. I hope you’re here to tell me I’m wrong. For those who don’t already know this, agents write queries too. At times we […]

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  • Submitting to Agents: What Not to Do

    Nov 10, 2014

    This is probably a post title I’ll use a lot. If we’re lucky. Frequently I get submissions, queries or even just questions that I’ll refer to another agent at BookEnds. I feel very lucky to work with such smart women with different tastes and as such, referring something usually means I think it has merit, […]

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  • Don’t Judge a Book, or an Agent, by her Cover

    Nov 07, 2014

    While traveling the globe (this might be a slight exaggeration) speaking at writers conferences and talking with authors I learn a lot about myself.  One day I’ll hear from a writer how I don’t read Fantasy and the next day I’ll hear from a writer how I’m selling a ton of Urban Fantasy. The next […]

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  • Queries: How Long is too Long to Wait?

    Nov 06, 2014

    This is a question I’ve answered in my past life as a BookEnds blogger, but since this is a new life on the blog and a new world I thought I’d tackle it again. During a recent #askagent session on Twitter I was asked how long is too long to wait on a query. I […]

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  • Time to Cut the Apron Strings

    Nov 05, 2014

    One of the mantras in writing is to never give up. The persistent are the ones who achieve the most success if for any other reason because they are the ones still standing. That being said, sometimes I think there is a time to give up. Never on the writing, on the book. All too […]

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  • 250 Words on Self-Promotion

    Nov 04, 2014

    I am a subscriber to Simon & Schuster’s 250 Words daily posts. For those who don’t know they are posts in which authors discuss what they’ve learned from a favorite business book (typically not their own) in 250 Words or less. As a business owner I love business tips and advice and I love it […]

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  • Stress Cures

    Nov 03, 2014

    I have one of those little squeeze balls on my desk, the kind that are supposed to help you relieve stress. This one says Squeeze a Cowboy and was a bit of swag I probably got at RWA. It was from author Rebecca Zanetti and I don’t have a clue how old it is. When […]

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  • Deal news for Melissa Cutler!

    Nov 03, 2014

    Melissa Cutler’s first full-length novel in the Briscoe Ranch series that began with The Mistletoe Effect, featuring the employees of a wedding resort ranch who find true love of their own, to Holly Ingraham at St. Martin’s, in a nice deal, in a three-book deal, for publication in Spring 2016, by Jessica Alvarez at BookEnds […]

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  • Halloween Reads & Taking the Horror out of Pitch Appointments

    Oct 31, 2014

    I have a confession to make. I don’t think of myself as a scary book reader and, to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never (gulp) read Stephen King. I know, I know… I have read Dean Koontz and loved Thomas Harris so its not like I’ve never ready a scary book. I just haven’t […]

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