Category: Writing advice that may or may not be completely wrong

Writers are warned to beware of “bad” publishers. But how are we supposed to know if a publisher is good or bad?

It’s taken me a long time to learn how to spot the good from bad, so I thought I’d share. Note that my research is focused on publishers of novels rather than poetry, screenplays, etc, which might be very different.

Before we get into that, we need to define what is meant by “good” and “bad.” For purposes of this post:

A good publisher will sell your work to a good number of readers.

What counts as “a good number” will depend on your genre and the form of writing, among much else, so let’s say that means “many orders of magnitude more than you could sell on your own.”

Bad publishers fall into two categories:

Some bad publishers are scammers, who will extract money from you and not sell your book.

Some bad publishers have good intentions but won’t be able to sell your book any better than you could on your own.

Good publishers sell your books in good quantities to readers.

So, how do you tell if a publisher is good or bad?

Continue reading “How to Spot a ‘Good’ or ‘Bad’ Publisher” →

I’ve decided to work on my author brand. I don’t really know what that is, but neither does anybody else who works in marketing, so I’m not letting it bother me. I’ve been in this industry long enough to know all I need is some Blue Sky Thinking and I will be able to grab that Low Hanging Fruit for a Quick Win!

Anyway.

Step one of my author brand is coming up with a brand identity. Again, nobody really knows what that means, so I’ve decided it means two things:

1. An Anna Kaling look.
2. An Anna Kaling tag line.

I’ve already got a great look going on personally…

 

…so all I need is a digital look across my social media sites (which, FYI, are this blog, @AnnaKaling on Twitter, and my Facebook page).

Continue reading “Tell Me About Myself” →

I apologise when people tread on my foot.

I say, “That’s not bad” when I think something is great, and, “That’s quite good” when I think it’s awful.

I have an opinion on whether you should put the milk in first or last when making tea.

Yes, I’m British.

I write for all romance lovers, and have readers from the UK, Canada, the US, and Australia among others, but I aim my books at the US market for many reasons – it’s the home of romance, my agent is in the US, it’s a bigger market than the UK, and I get extra brownie points for writing things like, “Bloody hell!”

It has its benefits, but also its drawbacks. In particular:

What the hell do I call women’s underwear?

Continue reading “Problems with International Writing” →

I haven’t given birth but I’m pretty sure it can’t be as painful as writing a query for literary agents.

Trying to condense 100,000 words into 250 is hard enough, but you know what doesn’t help? The pressure. The well-meaning advice articles kindly explaining that agents don’t buy toilet paper because they print and use the 10,000 awful queries they get a week–but not before they’ve posted them on their Secret Agent Groups and laughed at you and your pathetic dreams of being a writer.

The worst thing of all? The pressure is completely unnecessary. Queries don’t have to be perfect. They have one job: to make the agent want to read your pages. A typo isn’t going to spoil that (psst, here’s a secret; agents make typos too). Not perfectly explaining all of your sub-plots is not going to spoil that. Sending it just after the agent realises she’s bought a decaff coffee instead of a regular isn’t… actually, it might. Agents really do take coffee seriously.

But, really, QUERIES DO NOT HAVE TO BE PERFECT.

To prove it, I’m sharing my less-than-perfect query; the one that landed me my fabulous agents, Amanda and Michelle, with Amanda’s comments on why it did its job. (Psst: If you want to query Amanda, check out that link.)

Continue reading “A Successful Romance Query” →

UPDATE:  When I wrote this, Amanda was at Inklings Literary Agency. She’s now at BookEnds Literary, and I went with her, of course. Please check BookEnds for her latest submission guidelines and don’t rely on this post!

Everybody knows the most time consuming part of querying: stalking agents online to find out everything from their favourite movie to their mum’s shoe size and then realising you can’t put any of that in your query anyway because then they’ll know you’re a freaky Stalker McStalkerson.

This process of stalking is so much easier when the agent obliges with a social media presence.

To aid and assist agent-seeking authors in this quest, I bribed my agent extraordinaire Amanda Jain (with Mr Kiplings Fondant Fancies) to answer your questions about querying.

Amanda has worked at Inklings since 2014 and is actively looking for new clients. A profile and details of what she’s looking for can be found on the Inklings website and her Twitter.

I can attest that she has a wicked sense of humour, is wonderfully editorial, loves Oxford commas, and isn’t fazed by dealing with neurotic authors (um… a friend told me that last bit… totally not me.)

Speaking of authors being a strange bunch, your first question to Amanda was:

Q: HOW CAN WE MAKE YOU LOVE US?

Continue reading “Agent Q&A: Amanda Jain of BookEnds Literary Agency” →

I recently had this exchange on Twitter:

I’ve reached that stage of editing, with novel #2, where I’m past the fuzzy warmth of false confidence and social lubrication and into I’m-going-to-vomit territory. (I’m not entire sure the tequila analogy works there…)

I’m now tinkering with individual sentences and words and probably making them worse, or just as good, instead of better.

This means it’s time to start novel #3. I thought I’d explain my process here–with the caveat that it’s MY process and will NOT work for everyone–for planning a romance novel.

Continue reading “Planning a Romance Novel” →