Blog Archive
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We Interrupt This Program
Jun 30, 2008
It’s rare that I ever do two blog posts on the same day, but today deserves a dual post, a program interruption if you will. In yesterday’s Washington Post Twelve publisher Jonathan Karp wrote a thought-provoking and brilliant piece on the state of publishing and the problems caused by what he says are publishers, agents, […]
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Querying if You’re Not Sure of Genre
Jun 30, 2008
I currently have a fantasy manuscript that I wrote with no thought of a sub-genre. After having a few beta readers mention my work leaning towards the YA side of fantasy, I now begin to wonder if I should worry about the word count. It was meant to be a full-length fantasy at 100K words, […]
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Spelling Bees
Jun 27, 2008
The word occasion. I don’t know what it is about that word, but every single time I type it I get it wrong. I know that if I were in a spelling bee and up for millions of dollars it would be that one simple word that would bring me down. In a conversation lately […]
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Submission Freak-Outs
Jun 26, 2008
I received an email recently from someone freaking out because she forgot to include an SASE with her submission, and it made me think about all of the times I think authors freak out post-submission. Let me try to quell some of those fears. SASE Problems . . . If you sent the submission to […]
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Kate Douglas on Writing
Jun 25, 2008
Kate DouglasWolf Tales VIPublisher: Kensington AphrodisiaPub Date: June 2008Agent: Jessica Faust (Click to Buy) Author Web/Blog links: www.katedouglas.com, www.myspace.com/katedouglas_wolftales, https://groups.yahoo.com/group/KateDouglas/ Why We Do What We Do . . . About a year ago, I finished a manuscript I’d been working on for about three months. The story, Wolf Tales VI, was just released, but it […]
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What I’m Looking For
Jun 24, 2008
Yesterday’s post on queries and my reporting of them reminded me that it’s been a long time since I’ve updated you on what I’m looking for these days. Of course I’m always looking for everything on my list (for those who haven’t made it to the About Us page on our web site, that means […]
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Submission Reporting
Jun 23, 2008
It’s been a long time since I’ve reported in on my submissions—what I read and my decisions. I know readers like to see this from time to time, so here we go. . . . The weekend was incredibly productive for me. I was able to get a lot of queries read from Friday to […]
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An Interesting Thought on “Rules”
Jun 20, 2008
A lot of comments lately have blasted agents and editors for all of our rules. We stifle authors, we cause nothing but problems, and we’re rude to boot. I debated a discussion on rules because I have a feeling I’m going to get blasted for it, but a client of mine pointed out that what […]
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Co-Agenting and What It Means
Jun 19, 2008
I was asked recently what happens when two authors with different agents finish a project together. And that’s a great question. What happens then is called a co-agented deal, and BookEnds has done a number of them. Typically, once both agents have read and approved of the project, the agents will start talking to discuss […]
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The Sophomore Slump
Jun 18, 2008
In the comments section to one of my blog posts there was a reference to the sophomore slump, when an author has spent years writing and perfecting her first novel and now only has nine months to a year at most to write the second novel and just can’t get it there. This resulted in […]
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Thank You for Your Time
Jun 17, 2008
One time, long ago, I said that I don’t like people to thank me for my time in query letters. And wow, what a mistake that was. I think that of all the things I have written this is the one that has created the most problems and the biggest misunderstandings. I’ve seen other bloggers […]
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Waiting for your Agent’s Attention
Jun 16, 2008
I get a lot of questions from authors asking how to handle an agent who won’t respond to repeated phone calls or emails, but recently I received a question from a reader with a slightly different situation. The author’s agent, Agent X, has been relentlessly working to sell her first book, exhausting all possible resources […]
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