by Anne R. Allen Yeah, I know. We all hate labels. But if our ultimate goal is space on a bookstore shelf, we have to be able to suggest to an agent or editor what shelf that might be. The best place to start is an actual bookstore. Find books like yours and see […]
LITERARY OR GENRE?
by Anne R. Allen Hundreds of folks weighed in on the great literary vs. genre debate on Nathan Bransford’s blog last month (He says good writers need to read both. I agree.) A few days later, in a Writers Chronicle thread more writers debated the subject. But nothing much got resolved—I think because the […]
Do You Write “New Adult” Fiction?
by Anne R. Allen There’s a new fiction genre in the publishing world: “New Adult.” This means books for single people 18-30. According to author S. Jae-Jones’ recent blogpost it includes most of the hipper literary works of the past couple of decades, plus the now defunct (just whisper it) chick lit. Her list […]
SHOULD YOU REWRITE WITHOUT A CONTRACT?
by Anne R. Allen If you’re a diligent, talented writer who’s done your homework—and you have the good-luck fairy on speed-dial—sometime during your novel querying process, your phone will ring and you’ll hear the voice of an agent—a real, honest-to-goodness publishing industry professional—who’s impressed enough to spend money and time ringing up little old […]
YOU MAY BE A BESTSELLING AUTHOR ON TRALFAMADORE
by Anne R. Allen This week, agent Nathan Bransford posed this question on his blog: “How Do You Deal with the ‘Am-I-Crazies’?” Those are the blues that can overwhelm the unpublished/underpublished novelist as we slog away, year after year, with nothing to show for our life’s work but a mini-Kilimanjaro of rejection slips. The […]
5 Tips on How to Query the Right Agent
by Anne R. Allen Recently I cautioned against scam agents, but also noted that the ratio of legit agents to newbie novelists is approximately one to twenty-five gazillion. So what do we do—throw mass queries at big-name agents, perhaps employing the services of a Mafia henchperson or Voodoo practitioner? That would be a […]
Beware Bogus Literary Agents
Six Tips to Avoid Getting Scammed by Anne R. Allen I belong to the generation of women who were told we were more likely be shot by terrorists than find husbands. Several decades later, we’re all writing books about our fabulous single lives—as desperate now for literary representation as we once were for the […]
Everybody’s a Critic: dealing with unsolicited criticism
by Anne R. Allen Early into our journeys in wordsmithing, most writers discover our chosen art form has a major drawback: everybody’s a *&@! critic. For some reason, folks who happily offer praise to fledgling musicians, quilters, sculptors, or Star Trek action-figurine painters, feel compelled to launch into scathing critiques of the efforts of […]
I Do Not Have Time to Read This Crap
This is one of my most pirated columns from Inkwell Newswatch. I’ve found copied on dozens of other blogs. (I’m flattered, pirates, as long as you give me attribution.) I wrote it in May of 2005, when I was working for an indie publisher in the UK, now defunct, but the principles remain the same. […]
Do You Need to Attend Writers’ Conferences?
by Anne R. Allen I’m starting to pull my old columns from the INkwell Newswatch archives. I hope to post updated versions here for the next few months. This is from June 2007, in response to lots of questions I was getting about the necessity of attending conferences. Writers’ Conferences–the INside Scoop Writers’ Conference […]
Friday the 13th
I’m starting a blog on Friday the 13th. What does that say about me? Am I thumbing my nose at superstition, or commencing an exercise in self-defeat? Is this a way to have a web presence, or to avoid work–crying into an already blog-saturated wilderness? I just made this disappear. And then come back. I’m […]
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