-
My Novel Is Rejected
Dear Mr. Hughes: Thanks for submitting your novel Vengeance Is the Patriot: A Skip Abernathy Adventure, which I now return to you. The 42-cent SASE enclosed with your manuscript was insufficient to the task, so I am sending it back in the same heavy-duty Mayflower cartons in which it arrived, with an invoice for postage due.
-
The Great American Query Letter
Recently, funny things have been happening in my slush pile. I find myself receiving well-written, correctly formatted, professional-looking query letters from bad writers. Imagine my chagrin: one minute I'm intrigued by a smoothly crafted query letter, the next I'm staring down at a crackpot writing sample.
-
read this b4 u publish :-)
I am of that population segment that is constantly derided as “not reading anymore,” and is therefore treated by publishing companies as a vast, mysterious demographic that's seemingly impossible to please. Kind of like the way teenage boys think of girls. The reason we read so little in our free time is partially because of the literary choices available to teenagers these days.
-
Before the Spotlight Dims
Thanks to the success of comics-related movies such as The Dark Knight and Iron Man, not to mention bestselling graphic novels like Watchmen, Persepolis and a slew of others, graphic novels are riding a high wave toward fame. But like all hot trends, comics won't be the bright new kids for long. Graphic novels will turn into something like chick lit, which used to be the most appealingly fresh ...
-
Get Happy
When I sold my first book, I thought my future as a writer was made. Then, six months before pub date, my editor changed houses. There was no one to champion my book in-house. And when my release date rolled around, the publisher was also releasing a book by O.J.'s girlfriend, for which it had paid a million dollars.
-
The Weight of Coauthorship
I imagine writing your own life story is like going to substandard therapy eight hours a day. Writing someone else's life story, in my experience, is more like being that untrained therapist. I recently had the honor to co-author the memoir of AIDS activist Marvelyn S. Brown. At 19 years old, Marvelyn fell for her Prince Charming one day on a Nashville playground, chose to have unprotected sex ...
-
The Gospel According to Paul
If the world were a just place, there would be a constant spotlight from heaven shining on bookseller Paul Ingram. Instead, he's swathed in the glow of fluorescent lights in the basement commons room of First Unitarian Church in Davenport, Iowa. At 10 on a Sunday morning, he's practicing the fine art of the hand-sell.
-
The Doom and Gloom Report
The news last week was pretty discouraging: David Foster Wallace committed suicide, high finance took a trip down the toilet, Sarah Palin has a history of wanting to ban books. Then, I got New York magazine in the mail. “Can The Book Business Be Saved?” the cover asked. I shuffled to the middle for the answer, only to find a story titled “The End” that leads with an imag...
-
Finding Mr. Write
I attended the Maui Writers Conference last year not because I'd dutifully planned ahead, saved my money and was finally ready to put myself out there after years of hiding behind my fear of being rejected. The reason I decided to attend was simply because I was chasing yet another good-looking-commitment-phobic-he's-just-not-that-into-me man/boy with mother issues with whom I'd had a fling whi...
-
She Used to Live in Brooklyn
“Born and raised in Brooklyn,” read the first line of my author bio, sent to me by my editor in preparation for my debut novel's publication. I was instantly disheartened. Sometimes it seems that nothing I do in life will ever exceed that initial, ignorant accomplishment: growing up in what has become the cultural mecca of turn of the 21st-century America.
-
Limited Options
Sometimes I chat with the old lady who seasons the fried chicken at my grocery's take-out deli. Recently she asked me, “What do you do?” “I'm a writer,” I said. “Is that right?” she asked, a grin crossing her face. “A writer?” She was impressed, I could tell.
-
Printing in Asia? Think Twice
The publishing industry is in the midst of numerous positive environmental transformations, with nearly 200 publishers setting meaningful policies and recycled fiber use increasing sixfold in the past several years. I'm thrilled about this progress. But I'm still the bearer of some bad news: in spite of everything, the industry is endangering some of the world's most critical forests—part...
-
Blurb Service
With book coverage in newspapers steadily declining, publishers face some difficult questions. Will papers continue to cut their book pages? Couldn't they just cut the bridge column instead? How about the Jumble? But the big one is: what will become of informed, intelligent discourse about books? Hey, in today's fast-paced world, who has time for informed, intelligent discourse? Have you checke...
-
You're Wearing That to the Meeting?
As far as I can tell, you publishing people have no freakin' idea what the term “business casual” means, let alone “summer Fridays.” Well, to be fair, neither do accounting people, tech people, advertising people, financial people, legal people or marketing people—and definitely not pharmaceutical people.
-
Two-Way Street
Last winter, Writer's Digest profiled Komenar Publishing. Hits on our Web site doubled and tripled. E-mails and calls increased by 15%. Submissions doubled and threatened to triple. This when Komenar publishes only two new titles a year. The deluge was amazing, satisfying... and frustrating. Columnist Jordan Rosenfeld presented Komenar as a practical yet idealistic, approachable company.
-
Coauthor Blues
When my sixth coauthored book was published, I celebrated by writing my coauthor a poison pen letter so delicious that my agent and my husband made me promise never to mail it. Like my other collaborations, this one began with good spirits and lofty hopes. The author, a psychologist, knew my work and had sought me out.
-
About the Author
Elisha Cooper is writing this piece. He's writing it in New York, where he lives with his wife and daughters. He's the author of numerous highly acclaimed blah, blah, blah.... Stop! The “about the author” note is the most awkward piece of writing, especially as authors often write it themselves or edit the ones written for them.
-
Sex, Sighs, and Jackie Collins
I was barely a teenager when Jackie Collins ruined me for life. It happened the day I discovered Chances in my sister's college apartment. The novel belonged to her roommate, who was away on vacation with a married man, and I stole it with the rationalization that the home wrecker would be better served reading Smart Women, Foolish Choices.
-
TK
If you were fortunate enough to know Liz Maguire, you knew her exuberance, her playfulness and most of all, her passion. Not laid back, not a quitter. Liz edited and published books for 25 years, acquiring a list of devoted authors who loved her dearly. You might also know that she published a first novel in 2002, Thinner, Blonder, Whiter, and that the main character bore a striking resemblance...
-
Separate and Unequal
If you are a lesbian and you want to get married in California, you're in luck. But if you are a human being who would like to read novels with lesbian protagonists by openly lesbian authors, you'd better move to England. In the U.K., openly lesbian novelists with lesbian content like Jeanette Winterson and Sarah Waters are treated like people, and their books are treated like books.
Browse archive by date:
