Award winning author, Cathryn Prince, will be in Ithaca for two events during Veterans Day weekend. Cathryn Prince is the author of four books of non-fiction history, a frequent contributor to The Christian Science Monitor, The Weston Forum, Weston Magazine, and Ridgefield Magazine, and has taught journalism at Quinnipiac, Columbia and Boston Universities. Military Writers Society of America recently awarded Cathryn Prince its 2013 Founders Award for Death… [Read More]
Go ahead, file your complaints! Starting now, we’ll be blogging only once a week here. And we’ll be posting on Friday mornings instead of Saturday. Swenson Book Development llc provides custom services to a select clientele and this change in blogging schedule reflects our commitment to serve these authors first and foremost. We plan to continue to provide helpful information and links to resources to… [Read More]
While the rest of the working world looks forward to Fridays, if you are an author whose proposal and/or manuscript is under review with a publisher there may be dread for this day of the week. Rejection letters are often sent out on Fridays. You might wonder why Friday. Rejection letters are never welcomed and often unintentionally inflict emotional injuries. The urge to respond and… [Read More]
There are no shortcuts on the path to publishing. You need a brilliant manuscript, a winning book proposal, and an organic platform. Getting “found” by a publisher today includes some new avenues. Here are 10 ways some writers have found their way to a publishing contract. 1. Write and publish a personal essay for Modern Love, published every Sunday in the New York Times style… [Read More]
Biu Ling, a data-mining expert at the New York Times, estimates one in three book reviews is a fake. More than a year ago, the New York Times reported on the best book reviews money can buy. Further investigations into how authors buy their way onto bestselling book lists resulted in the Wall Street Journal publishing a news report earlier this year on how the… [Read More]
More than any other reason, acquisition editors use the lack of an audience platform to reject a book project. They look at more than the numbers of followers, friends, tweeps and subscribers to assess the size of your reading audience. Social media metrics are one indication of an author’s potential customer base. There are many others. Here’s a list of what an agent or acquisition… [Read More]
So you think you need an agent? Most agents do not represent poetry, short stories, non-fiction or material suitable for academic or small presses. If you have written a novel or a memoir, you might consider finding a literary representative. The best reference guide is Chuck Sambuchino’s Guide to Literary Agents published annually by Writer’s Digest Books and the 2014 issue has just been released. Before you… [Read More]
Spend more time on writing and less on social media. There. I said it. I mean it. Facebook,Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google + can suck your precious time. I see many authors use these social media platforms like megaphones to shout out into the wilderness “Buy my book!” One author, who shall remain nameless to protect his guilt, spent four hours one evening spitting out such… [Read More]
Pop-up book club. Literary trading post. Community book swap. Wrap your head around this growing global phenomena: Little Free Libraries. In 2009 Todd Bol built a wooden box, made it look a bit like a schoolhouse, mounted it on a post in his front yard of his home in Hudson, Wisconsin, filled it with books, and stuck a note on the front door to take… [Read More]
You’ve finished writing your manuscript and you’re ready to publish. Or at least you thought you were. Think again. Do you have a proposal and a platform? There’s no book without a manuscript. It’s a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for publishing today. No matter how good the manuscript, it’s only one of three legs on which to step up to publication. In fact,… [Read More]
