Nathan Bransford | Writing, Book Editing, Publishing
Helping authors achieve their dreams
Contrary to popular belief among some fearful authors, literary agents will not be scared off and disappear into an angry puff of smoke the moment you send them a follow-up email. An agent’s inbox looks like the electronic equivalent of Niagara Falls, and at any given time they will have literally thousands of pages in […]
Writing a book is a huge undertaking. It takes an immense amount of time and the only real way to finish it to chip away at the task a bit at a time. So how long do you spend writing a week on average? For me, I had very little time to write for a […]
Back when I was a literary agent, I did something that many writers found extremely odd. When I liked someone’s query letter, I asked them to send me the first thirty pages via email. If I liked those thirty pages, I would ask to see the whole manuscript. Why didn’t I just ask for the […]
Ah, word count. Few elements of the book-writing process inspire such hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing as trying to constrain your novel within certain seemingly arbitrary bounds. In this post I’m going to tell you: Why word count matters for novels Standard word count ranges for various genres The word counts of some famous novels for comparison […]
A great setting can make a novel unforgettable. And there have been some great cities in novels that inspire our imagination, make us want to pack our bags, or run away screaming. What’s your favorite city in fiction? I’d have to go with the wildly inventive Besźel/Ul Qoma from China Mieville’s The City and the City. What […]
Be careful out there. While the Internet has been an incredible boon to authors, there are also lots of scammers who prey on authors’ dreams. Protecting yourself starts with knowing your rights as an author. Here are some key things to know. Literary agents get paid only when you get paid It should not cost […]
Helping authors achieve their dreams
