Rejections are tough, and when they stand between a writer and his dream of getting published, the call of the world of digitally self-publishing can start to echo louder and louder. But when is the right time to quit querying and self-publish? We’ve all heard those stories of great books getting turned down by agent/editor after…
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My wonderful husband surprised me with an Amazon Kindle Fire under the Christmas tree this year. Before Christmas, I had heard some disappointing things about the Fire, but the biggest one — that Fire users can’t buy ebooks from independent bookstores — turns out to not be true. Great news for anyone who has already…
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Have you heard about the Library Phantom? If not, read this article on NPR. In a nutshell, an anonymous woman has been creating amazing sculptures out of old books and leaving them in libraries in the U.K. “In support of … books, words and ideas,” wrote the artist. While it seems a shame to tear…
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Going into the Austin SCBWI chapter’s annual conference this weekend — it was great, by the way — I was curious to find out how middle-grade novels are selling in ebooks, as that’s what I write. I’ve seen lots of articles in the Publishers Lunch enewsletter saying that ebook sales are rocketing in adult books…
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Happy New Year! It’s a new year, and, now that I’m finally starting to settle down after my monster move, I’m back on Day By Day Writer. I’m excited and pledge that I’ll be with you at least three times a week. So, with the new year comes good news and bad in the publishing…
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Revision update: Still on chapter 22 of 30, thanks to a car that needed an alignment and wheel balancing (why do these things take so long), laundry and some others. Don’t you hate the way the nitty gritty of life gets in the way of your writing? 🙂 I’ve got eight chapters to do this…
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I spent my Saturday at the fabulous Austin SCBWI conference, which offered a great lineup of speakers. Over the next week, or as long as it takes to cover them all, I’ll post what I heard. First up is literary agent Mark McVeigh, who has his own agency, The McVeigh Agency. Mark knows something about…
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Manuscript update: Buried in query letter and synopsis writing hell. Yesterday, I promised more on synopsis writing today, so here goes. I went through this already with my first novel, but when I sat down to write the synopsis for my second, I felt like a toddler on uneasy legs. So, I did my favorite…
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Done today: Chapter 1 (four pages) Revision remaining: 165 pages Daily pages needed to be finished by end of November: 3.5 Finally got down to some good revision this morning. Phew! Does it feel good to be working with the book again. We’ve read that children’s books have been doing better than some other segments in this recession.…
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