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Comment by Ana Sharma on November 11, 2010 at 7:15am

Thanks for the hint!

Comment by Kathy Leonard Czepiel on November 11, 2010 at 7:10am

Try Publishing Industry News group.

Comment by Ana Sharma on November 4, 2010 at 4:52pm

I think this blog is not active...

Comment by Kathleen S. Allen on October 29, 2010 at 2:15pm

I am a recent member of She Writes. I had an agent for a brief moment and then the agent dropped me...*sighs*. I did publish two YA novels with Publish America *sigh number two* and am just about to work on the 5th one with NaNoWriMo beginning Nov. 1st. My third novel is about a 16 year old American girl who discovers she's a banshee and must travel to Ireland to accept her heritage or lose it forever. The fourth one is an historical fiction that takes place in England. My NaNo novel is going to be about fairies and humans (this is my first fantasy novel). I tried writing an adult mystery novel but failed miserably. I also tried writing an adult Lesbian mystery novel...but that one didn't go anywhere either. From all this it appears that YA is the genre I am most comfortable in but it appears to be the hardest genre to get published in. True?

Comment by Ana Sharma on October 26, 2010 at 12:50pm

Hello everybody,

thank you for having me in this group.

I would like to know your point of view about self-publishing. If I self-publish my book, will I ever be considered a "serious" writer?

Most of my publication is scientific which means that the submission and refereeing processes are different from a novel submission. I wonder if it really worth hunting for an agent or publisher, instead of simply self-publishing.
On the other hand, if I self-publish and people don't read because they will think my book is trash... I don't know what to do.

Ok, before you ask: why don't you give a try? I have a chronic disease and I am supposed to take easy on my working hours and stress level. Hunting an agent sounds like a very stressing job. It scares me!!

Comments and suggestions are welcome,
Ana

Comment by Kimberly C. Stickrath on August 15, 2010 at 8:33pm

Hi, Erin, thank you so much for responding. According to my MS Word 2010 (beta), it reads for about the seventh grade...but my grandmother got me hooked on these when I was about nine or so (she got tired of me whining that I couldn't play in the woods on a really rainy visit, and essentially just handed them to me and said, "Here!" :) ) ... My grandmother described them as sort of novels for young readers, and I can see that that would be an accurate description.

I kind of gathered that they would be the main hook, and I can live with that. My family has been wanting to publish them for literally generations, and I've actually had only four of the original manuscripts for years, but when I recently found out that all of the other manuscripts my great-grandfather wrote had been accidentally disposed of, I felt a really pressing need to get myself in gear and get them out. In a way, they remind me of Shirley Temple movies....plucky little girl getting by on faith that everything will be ok, and her own hard work. Now, I'm naive, but I'm not so naive that I can't tell the difference between the pat on the head, "you're a really good writer" routine from friends, and the sharp intake of breath and anticipating light in the eyes of someone who has found something truly unexpected. I'm genuinely getting an almost surreal reaction from those who are reading them (and I've deliberately let people who've never read my work read them this time around), and these reactions have come from educators of young children. The first one is done (had to rewrite it from memory), I'm doing some major re-writing and editing of the second and hope to be done in about three weeks, and there are three more coming. They are all stand-alone stories, and my intent is to publish them as such, and then publish all of them in a book called the Bickerstaff Compendium of Wonderful Things. If I can get these done, I believe that at least two or three of the stories could easily lend themselves to a series of their own. I've been spending hours each day doing the rewrites, with the intent of getting them publish-ready in as little time (and as few drafts) as possible.

They vary in length...I'm planning for them to be in 6 X 9 format, and the first is 74 or 76 pages long, ds. I have no illustrations for them, but that doesn't mean that illustrations wouldn't work with them. I'm not certain how long the others will turn out to be.

I've just heard so much about publishing houses clinging to their known quantities...and about unscrupulous behavior in other aspects of the writing circles...I like I'm a country girl getting ready to cross the intersection in Shibuya, Tokyo. In particular, I need to find someone who can handle legal issues and who can guide me through the process...but really, I don't know exactly how much hand-holding I can expect from an agent, given my unknown status, and the lint in my bank account. I've also been told that Writers Market is great, but is really one of the last things I'm supposed to look at...

I feel really driven to get these done and done right. I'm afraid that if I can't get them done professionally, that I may lose my impetus, and that they'll get forgotten again. Part of it is vanity, certainly, but most of it is that I really believe these stories could stay...that they will be pleasantly remembered in the culture consciousness. I just want to give them the best chance I can.

Thank you again for your response. I truly appreciate any advice you can give me.

Comment by Erin Hosier on August 13, 2010 at 1:07pm

OMG, I mean "write" for...

Comment by Erin Hosier on August 13, 2010 at 1:06pm

Hi Kimberly- Don't be scared - you're in a good place. It seems that of your various forms of preferred writing, only one of them - the children's stories - are really marketable. Most agents don't represent poetry, and story collections are quite difficult to sell as well. But lots of agents specialize in children's books at all stages. What age group do you right for?

Comment by Kimberly C. Stickrath on August 13, 2010 at 7:31am

Hello, all. I am preparing for my first ever attempt into the land of the professional author, and I feel very much out of my depth. I know nothing about publishing. I know nothing about agents...and I have very little money.

I write in several genres...short stories, free-verse poetry, and my current project has been a series of children's stories. My original intent was to publish on Create Space, but I'm getting some unusual buzz on the children's stories and I really think they could take off...but I need someone who can help me navigate, protect my rights, and help me do this correctly. I have a Writers Market book, but there seems to be so much information there that I don't quite know where to begin. Am I supposed to look for different agents or different publishing houses for my genres, or can one agent just take what I have and run with it?

I'm new at this part of the process, and I'm terrified of it all. What is the best, step by step advice you can give me?

Comment by Laurie Kahn on August 12, 2010 at 4:40pm

If I am looking for an agents who would be interested in Narrative Nonfiction and Psychology .....with narratives from the counseling room interwoven with memoir where would you go? Of course I know the advice of look to the books and authors with similar themes that you like and identify their agent . Any other insider info. Thanks for any interesting or compelling ideas.

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