Essential Information

A writers conference may be just what you need.

This past week, a literary agent vented his frustrations about the submissions he’d reviewed that morning. Though the writers assumed they were ready for the Big Leagues, their responses betrayed serious shortcomings.

They lacked a basic understanding of not only the vocabulary, but also the expectations of professional publishing. Without that foundation, no … Continue reading

Why Write a Synopsis

There are good reasons to summarize your novel.

Yes, an agent or an editor really expects you, in your book proposal, to compress your novel, no matter its length, to only three pages.

Impossible? Welcome to the world of professional novelists.

A clients whose middle-grade novel I’d edited asked me to check her proposal before she sent it to an agent. All was going well until I … Continue reading