There are a lot of ways to build your author platform these days. But guest blogging is still one of my favorites. Writing an article for a popular blog has long-term value that far outlasts the effort, and offers an engaged audience within a focused niche. But my favorite perk is seeing my own work… Read more »
Choosing your next food book idea can be scary. It takes bravery to commit to an idea and follow through with its development. So, how do you go about deciding on one? Well, it just might be in your next culinary magazine pitch. Writing for a magazine might not be the first thing on your… Read more »
Every year, I watch budding new writers nervously pitch their books to literary agents and acquiring editors at our annual writer’s conference, Pitch, Publish, & Promote. They pace the halls, practicing their query with shaking hands. Pitching to an agent is THE big first step in releasing your writing into the world, and it can… Read more »
I don’t know why it took me so long to read James Scott Bell’s Revision and Self Editing for Publication (it’s incredible!) but I do know it changed the way I looked at my story, my characters, and what really mattered in my plot. What did Bell say about back cover copy? Not too much…other… Read more »
Hey there word nerds! Today I’m delighted to have literary agent Mark Gottlieb on the show. Mark is an agent at Trident Media Group, where he has worked with the agency’s chairman. He is now working on building his own client list because he wants to help manage and grow authors’ careers using the amazing… Read more »
OMG Writer Igniter Con is just one week away! One of my favorite things about this online conference is that you can get real-time feedback from agents so you can learn to pitch your book. Of course, with the conference just around the corner, my team and I have been getting some questions what a pitch actually is, why writers… Read more »
For months, I dreaded my first pitch session, a live event in which a roomful of potential agents awaited me with only three minutes to impress each one I’d targeted. I’ve always felt that I don’t make a good first impression; I come off too serious, too earnest, too Hermione-ish. (There’s a reason Harry and… Read more »
In my experience, most three hour drives feel like nothing more than numb legs, backaches, and forcing myself to stop checking the clock. But leave it to my first Writer’s Digest Conference to speed that drive right up. I knew ahead of time that I was going to force my driving buddy into helping me… Read more »
DNA is a miraculous thing. It’s the microscopic genetic material that contains the blueprint for a life. A well-constructed sentence can do the same thing for your story. It can clearly communicate your story to your audience (and to you too). It can be the building block of all your marketing efforts as well. As… Read more »
Art is fire plus algebra. – Jorge Luis Borges Query letters are strange and intimidating beasts. They are the much obsessed, much abused, much scorned part of the marketing process. Essentially they are like movie trailers for your book; they create the urge to see more. Somehow, by some feat of magic, you are forced… Read more »
