A successfully self-published book can propel you down the road to a book contract at a commercial publishing house. That’s the truth of the matter, despite the worries I hear from writers that self-publishing could doom their hopes of ever landing a real book deal. Don’t listen to those persistent rumors and urban myths that [...]

Psst!  Wanna write a scorcher for the booming YA market? OK, here’s the secret: The first thing you need to do is create an authentic, quirky, true-to-life voice. The story and characterizations in Young Adult fiction are crucial too, of course, but the most important element is that distinctive narrative personality. The strongest and most [...]

I can’t help smiling when I read a good hook.  When it happens, it’s a rush, a little like falling in love. The hook — those critical initial sentences of a query letter from an author, or the opening of the book proposal itself — are the first and most important words that agents and [...]

“Writing a memoir is an act of courage. Be brave. It means exposing who you really are, which is hard to do, even to yourself.” That advice comes from a conversation I had recently with Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D., President of the National Association of Memoir Writers. She’s the author of a new book, The [...]

“Everybody’s looking for the next big thing — a work of great literary fiction from an unknown writer who’s never been published.” That’s according to Jay Schaefer, an editor-at-large at Workman Publishers in New York City and its subsidiary, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Schaefer, a publishing veteran best known for producing the [...]

Q: I haven’t had any luck finding a publisher for my book. What’s the secret to getting in the door? A: Here’s my advice on how you can beat the odds and overcome the biggest reasons most books get rejected. But first, I’d like to give you an idea of what it’s like behind the [...]

Short story collections are big business. Thousands of anthologies are in print with many more published each year. A quick look at Amazon shows 29,000 story collections listed. Of those, more than 3,500 are anthologies of stories by a single author. That may surprise some short story writers, including those who’ve asked me if they [...]

Q : Everyone says I need to wrap up my manuscript and stop writing already. But I’m really stuck.  Any advice? A : This isn’t unusual. You may have taken a wrong turn early in the story as a result of poor planning. Or you may have painted yourself into a corner. Or you could [...]

Welcome to the final round in our series of book proposal critiques. It’s an audiocast, so to get started, just click the play button below. The six book proposals •The first proposal we’ll be looking at today is for a sci-fi/fantasy novel that takes place in a South American jungle.  The hero is a hack [...]

In the increasingly difficult competition to get published, writers know they must put their best foot forward by sending out only a professional, polished, and persuasive new proposal or manuscript to any prospective literary agent or publisher. Many authors have come to understand the value of objective help before taking the plunge, and I don’t [...]