It’s not a secret that the quality of books published by traditional publishers varies greatly. Some are breathtakingly magical, some read like lukewarm porridge. I personally have long felt that authors cast too many aspersions against traditionally published books and underrate how good they really are, particularly if you’ve never read slush to get a […]
Publishing Industry
We need to talk about email thread etiquette
If you don’t know what an email thread is and why it is imperative that you respect their integrity when corresponding with publishing professionals, well…. please pull up a chair. We need to talk. Literary agents and other publishing professionals are very, very busy people. At any given time, a literary agent may be corresponding […]
Apply for the WNDB mentorship program!
Applications are open for We Need Diverse Books’ mentorship program, which pairs children’s book authors and illustrators from underrepresented communities or who are working on book featuring a diverse protagonist with an experienced writer or illustrator. The mentors and mentees work together for an entire year and applications are open until October 31, 2020. Check […]
How to format a manuscript
Proper formatting is by far the easiest thing you can do to make your book project appear as professional as possible to literary agents and the various professionals you will work with throughout the publication process. There isn’t an ironclad industry standard format for manuscripts that’s as exacting as, say, a Chicago Manual of Style. […]
#PublishingPaidMe is just the tip of the iceberg
Over the weekend many authors bravely shared their book advances using the #PublishingPaidMe hashtag started by L.L. McKinney, exposing racial disparities in book advances and, as author Justina Ireland noted, showing that many authors aren’t making as much money as you think they’re making. It’s important for people to recognize that these disparities are still […]
You probably don’t need publishing credits
If I had a dollar for every author who reached out to me agonizing over the bio section of their query letter I would have enough money to personally buy Amazon dot com. In particular, authors agonize over whether they have sufficient publishing credits and whether said publishing credits are properly framed. (Here’s how to […]
