So many choices…so few guidelines or clear answers. How’s an author to choose?

With the proliferation of publishing options—traditional publishing, self-publishing, partner publishing, package publishing, e-books, p-books, and so on‑-many authors find themselves stymied by which route is best for them and…

A few days ago I finished the second re-write of my third novel, The River Keeper. Now for the final read through. I love this part. To be able to simply read the story without fixing plot holes and grammar. On August 22, 2011 the first words were written. It took me one year and eight months to write and edit this novel. How do these famous authors spit out three and four new books a year?

I know these people are rich and have house cleaners and nanny’s to pick their…

Today I sat in on the agent panel at the San Miguel de Allende Writers’ Conference with agents April Eberhardt, Penny Nelson,…

I didn't start out 2013 motivated.

I was beginning to grown tired of my novel.  I was dedicating so much time and energy to it and it got to a point where I began to doubt my work.  I doubted that the words on the page were good enough.

Twitter was abuzz with people getting agents and winning contests and I was revising - again. 

Then 2 things happened to snap me out of my funk:

1.  I found two great CP's

2.  I finally won a…

This week, I sent my revised book proposal to an interested agent. Fingers crossed.

For those of you who haven't yet begun the book-selling process, here’s how it begins:

You need an agent.  Literary agents are the baleen to the publishing industry's whale. The Brita to the publishing industry's drinking water. The pan to the publishing industry's gold, according…

Can you feel, chills up the spine?  Man...time flew past and I'm still chillin' in South Dallas, writing, designing and...oh snap.  I've got like 13 nieces and nephews.  The oldest nearly ready to graduate high school.  I call them, my crumbsnatchers.  Since I relocated to Sunny D, (from SoCal) in 1995, my goal was to become a full-time novelist /actor.  

Well that didn't turn out as planned.  However, I did get a chance to write and produce my first music demo, act in a few…

Three agents are currently “reading” my manuscript.  Two women and one man. And though I am a happily married heterosexual female, I can’t help but think of these three as potential mates. Landing an agent is really a lot like dating. And no matter how self-confident you are, at some point all your insecurities come into play. You start to wonder: Am I good enough?  Will he or she like me? Does this manuscript make me look fat? Ok, maybe that last one is a bit much, but you get the idea.…

I once took an amazing, month-long class on how to move your career forward.  It was in LA and most of the participants were in the entertainment industry.  Needless to say, the subject of agents came up.  Everyone wanted an agent - c'mon, who wouldn't?  Someone to champion you, get you in the door, build your career...  I want one, too.  But without knocking agents, the instructors quickly brought us to our senses.  We are in charge of our careers, not agents.  We are 100% responsible for…

Hi She Writers!  Today I have a bonanza, so keep checking back.  Thanks, Natalie, for these words of wisdom!

TEN BEST LESSONS LEARNED THE HARD WAY:

1. Write what you know. Writers get sick of hearing this, but successful authors keep repeating it, because it's true. I spent (wasted) a lot of…

(picture, courtesy of VABook Fest)

Greetings Shewriters - Get out your highlighters for some sound advice!

Bella Stander is the proprietor of Book Promotion 101 and publisher of Bella Terra Publishing. For the past dozen years she’s worked with the Virginia Festival of the Book, where she…

Recently on my quest to find an agent an interesting thing happened. On January 13, I emailed a query to a certain literary agency; I’ll call the Big Bad Wolf Literary Agency. On January 30, I received an email back from them saying, they’d love to read my entire manuscript.

Wow! Was I excited? I wasn’t crazy about the fact that they wanted me to mail them a hard copy, but I burned The Color of My Heart onto a CD and hurried it down to my buddies at the local copying…

Recently, a thread in an online writer’s community popped up, beginning with someone (who hadn’t begun querying) asking why folks sent query letters to so many agents.

Did they have that many “dream…

Mursi tribe imagination without border - Omo Ethiopia, a photo by Eric Lafforgue on Flickr.

The reality…

After nine years of working on my manuscript about my childhood in a bizarre, apocalyptic cult (tentatively titled The Angels Never Came), after the manuscript has won a nomination in an unpublished manuscript contest (2010 Doris Bakwin Award), after I have started a website for it (alexaara.com), I finally feel…

Want the real truth -- what editors think about writers?  Read this now!

http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/what-editors-think-of-writers/41677

I’ve finished a yearlong revision of my novel manuscript, a task I thought would take two months. Now I’m ready to query agents. But as a poet, I’m not as familiar with the publishing process for a novel and how exactly to woo the best agent for me. I’ve done some research, so I know that securing an agent is only a step in the process, not the goal. I’ve heard stories from both agents and authors about relationships gone awry. I’ve heard success stories too. I wanted to discuss the topic,…