In Search of the Elusive Comp
Come closer, child, and I shall tell you why your Uncle Jack gifts you with his storycraft, instead of peddling it to the masses for a fee, and also why he wears these rags and lives in what your father…
Category: Agents
Friday Feast: Questions to Ask During “The Call,” Submission Secrets, Book PR Lead Time, Fiction vs. Fact, and Awesome Places Ruined by Popular Books
Happy Friday, folks. Apple picking season is in full effect here at Dead Darlings headquarters in Boston. And much like those daytrippers who peruse the sweet and tangy offerings of bucolic family farms, I’m up to my ears in fantastic bookish…
Rejoice, For I Have Risen from Slush (or, How I Found My Agent)
I have a complicated relationship with the word “slush.” In the seventh grade, my stepbrother ratted me out for “borrowing” 71 pennies from my parents’ penny jar to buy a slushie at the 7-11. I got a stern talking to, which…
Unpenned: Turning the Novel Loose
“There comes a time when you have to let the novel go.” “It will never be perfect.” “You can’t fiddle with it forever.” Yadda, yadda. So goes the writing advice about when to finally set a novel free in the…
What to Do One Month Before Your Book Launch
When I write this, it is five weeks, two days and twelve and a quarter hours before my novel, Idyll Threats, is published. But who’s counting? Me. I am counting. I am also making to do lists. So many to…
Finding the Right Title
It’s almost a rite of passage to have to change the title of your book when it sells to a publisher, and I fully expected that to happen to me. I figured it would be just one more step in…