Writing is lonely, difficult work, and on top of that, anyone who wants to master the craft of writing fiction has to self-reveal. This surprises people. Many novelists believe that they need only lose themselves in a character, but the truth is that a writer of fiction needs to dig deep in order to feel...
The power of a query letter cannot be overestimated. An agent forms a first impression of you and your manuscript from your query letter, and it's often solely responsible for convincing the agent to read your work. There's no true formula for a query letter; if there were, every single manuscript would be requested by...
Time was, writers submitted their initial draft to a publishing house or a magazine, where editors read and welcomed it. Enticed by a project, an editor may have asked that a few things in the manuscript be explained better, or arranged differently, or fleshed out more colorfully, but when an editor saw promise in a...
Anyone who intends to get a nonfiction book published must write a book proposal first. Here's what you need to know.
Everyone's doing it—your kindergarten teacher, your car mechanic, your acupuncturist, that nosy neighbor across the street—so why can't you? It's not brain surgery, after all, and the only heavy lifting required is raising finger to keyboard, and voila, you're a writer! Or … not. Writing may not be brain surgery, but it's definitely surgical, and...
Is your inner critic keeping you from writing? Here's how to calm the negative voices so you can stop procrastinating and get to work!
Where do you get the latest information on what agents are looking for and tips about what you can do to make you and your book more valuable and valued? The following websites, blogs, and newsletters should be a good start.
Last Updated on March 23, 2022 Publishers gamble on books all the time. As a ghostwriter, there's only one thing that haunts me. It's the specter of the bestseller. The authors with whom I work may not dare to say it out loud, but every one of them wonders, “Could my book be a bestseller?”...
When I really fall in love with a book, I want it to have its own body.
I was the last person in Los Angeles to get a microwave. I only use my cell phone for outgoing calls. I forget how to access the Netflix and Hulu features on my Roku system. I don't know how to use my husband's food processor or my son's GPS. I waited until 2010 to buy...