I am a literary agent. I’ve been doing this work for the better part of four decades. When you do something and love it for as long as I have, you gain a lot of wisdom and knowledge, but you don’t lose the drive or the shrewdness. Those things only get better. I have plenty of war stories to tell, plenty of writing tips, and plenty of knowledge about things authors want to know. You won’t find a lot of this information anywhere else. If you’re looking for The Secret, this is as close as you’re going to get. Come on in.
MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE GODFATHER
MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE GODFATHER To me, THE GODFATHER (meaning the book and the first two movies) is an unparalleled masterpiece. It is operatic...
MY SOAPBOX ABOUT AUDIO
I have a thing about audio rights. Here’s a short history: Audio rights used to be easily retainable by the author, because no one thought...
CREATE A MYSTERY IN ONE SENTENCE
When my daughter was in second grade, she wrote a story. The first line was “It all started with ordinary carrots”. Why does that work?...
TEN SIGNS YOUR FIRST PAGE IS NOT WORKING
1. The font is tiny and single-spaced and the margins are miniscule. That lacks professionalism and tells me that you expect me to wade through something...
HOW I FIND NEW PROJECTS: A Tale of One Phone Call
I did a book a few years ago called BRAIN REBOOT: New Treatments for Healing Depression. Where did I find that book? In the slush...
LET’S PLAY DRESS-UP
This is one of my more delightful memories of my years in book publishing. My author Leslie Carroll (writing as Juliet Grey) sold a trilogy...
BACH’S SECRET
“Ceaseless work, analysis, reflection, writing much, endless self-correction, that is my secret.” — JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH That is my post for today. Bach is considered...
MANNERS
Manners matter. Here’s a story about that. When I first started in publishing, I worked with an elderly agent who was from the South. He...
THE KATE DUFFY LEGEND
There was once a wonderful editor named Kate Duffy. She did genre fiction. A story about her began to circulate many years ago, and she...
AGENT HOPPERS
No one likes an agent hopper. Someone who has had four agents in seven years is not attractive. It shows that they can’t stay put...
DON’T JUST SIT THERE
Let’s say you have a character who is stuck at the bottom of a well in the middle of nowhere. Her phone is dead. What...
WHERE ARE WE?
Setting is one of my favorite topics, because so many writers don’t use it well. Some don’t use it at all, which is a terrible...
IT’S A BUSINESS, REMEMBER?
If I were asked what is the one thing authors get wrong, it’s this. They don’t understand that publishing is a business. The second thing...
THE STORY OF A REAL AUCTION
This happened to a younger colleague of mine. It was one of the first sales she made, but it was a doozy. She discovered a...
COIN TRICK
Here’s a little trick I picked up somewhere along the way. I started using it when an author had to make a decision. Say she’s...
The Proof is in the Reading
It’s what’s on that page or screen that counts. Not your social media. That helps to sell the book once you have been published, but...
HOW AUCTIONS WORK
Once upon a time, long ago, multiple submissions were verboten. They were considered to be aggressive and rude. Each publisher felt that they were entitled...
MANAGING EXPECTATIONS
When an author sells her first book, she really has no idea what she’s getting into. All she knows is that she had this goal...
WRITING TIP
The best trait a character can have is resourcefulness. A resourceful character initiates action instead of merely responding to it. A resourceful character gets things...
AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE
I keep a gratitude journal, and have been doing that every single day for many years. Why do I do this? Because after you do...
THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER
THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER Admit it. You’re jealous of someone. And you probably don’t know it, but someone is jealous of you. It may be human...
COMMERCIAL AND LITERARY
How can you tell if a book is literary or commercial? Fiction tends to fall into either one of those camps. Sometimes the author thinks...
A QUICK SALE IS A GOOD SALE
I have always found this to be true. When something drags on and on, it loses energy and momentum. This doesn’t mean, of course, that...
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF A NEGOTIATION
All negotiations are psychological. You can’t really get around it. The ideal is for everyone to walk away happy. They achieve this by exaggerating their...
THE STORY NO ONE WANTS TO TELL YOU
This is a true story. Every word. I had an author who became more and more successful. As her success continued to grow, she turned...
LABEL WHAT YOU WROTE
I never want to see something that doesn’t know what it is. On the very first page, tell me what kind of book this is...
LEARN THE LINGO
I was at a conference and an author was presenting a question to a panel of publishers. She wanted to know if more self-promotion on...
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