Stalin’s Last Torpedo by Cathryn Prince COMING SOON
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November 15, 2011

Journalist Cathryn Prince signs book contract with Palgrave Macmillan. Stalin’s Last Torpedo by Cathryn J. Prince—the little known story of history’s largest maritime disaster—is under contract with Palgrave Macmillan. Prince plans to write it largely through the perspective of the surviving eyewitnesses. At the end of World War Two, Soviet torpedoes sank the Wilhelm Gustloff—a cruise liner turned escape ship—sending roughly 9,000 German refugees to… [Read More]

What Can Media Bistro Do For You?
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November 12, 2011

The question is, what can’t Media Bistro do?  Welcome to the first post of our Media Bistro series!  If you’ve not yet explored this multi-faceted journalism and  social media resource, then now is the time to  CHECK IT OUT! With everything from Morning Media News Feeds, to Twitter Resources, to a lengthy list of online writing courses, Media Bistro is the ultimate resource for writers,… [Read More]

“Almost Everything Takes Forever”: Poems by Kirsten Wasson
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November 3, 2011

“A novel, biography, and memoir, all/three going at once.” This is how Kirsten Wasson describes her mother’s voracious literary appetite in the poem “One Way to Read.” The two lines, however, could well have been written to describe the author’s new collection of poems, Almost Everything Takes Forever, published by Antrim House Books. It is a lush, lithe, witty, emotionally frank series of postcards from… [Read More]

The Fiction Writer’s Perspective: Live from the TCPL
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October 1, 2011

I’m not a fiction writer. I stick to what I know and what I know is English literature and social media. Yet this past week, I attended a workshop at the Tompkins County Public Library (TCPL) on writing historical fiction.  On Wednesday night I assisted Jill Swenson, the host and experienced writer, editor and CEO of Swenson Book Development LLC. It was the last meeting… [Read More]

Private effort and the corporate model
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September 24, 2011

Use branding to sell books and sustain your passion Many writers do not want to engage in social media because they fear their engagement online will detract from (either time spent on or quality of) their writing. It’s a valid concern. It’s also an unnecessary one – if modeling the right approach. You see, using social media is about writing. If you are a writer, in… [Read More]

Gone Local
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September 21, 2011

Publishing Gone Local: Part 1 Ithaca is a town where ‘going’ local has been all the rage for decades. In fact,  Ithaca has gone local, and it’s easy to feel a sense of self-reliance in this community. Whether you find it at The Piggery, or the Finger Lakes Wine Center, or the “Local Authors” series at Buffalo Street Books, appreciation abounds for all things Ithaca made…. [Read More]

Authors Add Face-to-Face to Your Social Media
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September 17, 2011

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, websites, and other electronic media platforms are important to an author’s success in the book business today. Let’s face it; you can’t ignore social media anymore if you plan to publish your book. Last week on this blog, Danielle made the point that even if you have electronic platforms up and running, they are of little value unless you can provide… [Read More]

What you’ll find here and when
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August 29, 2011

Swenson Book Development, LLC is pleased to announce that starting in September our blog will begin featuring three weekly articles or columns. Here’ what we have planned for our subscribers to receive on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings. Tuesday:              For the love of books                 Those who publish and sell books for more than the sake of a lousy buck are today’s unsung heroes. Ithaca… [Read More]

10 Awful Truths About Book Publishing by Piersanti
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August 7, 2011

Steven Piersanti, the President of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, recently updated his 2009 report on the publishing industry earlier this summer. Previously I posted an essay here that referenced Piersanti’s points raised in 2009 and how authors could overcome the 10 big mistakes big publishers make (February 28, 2011). Piersanti’s assessment in 2011 reflects the changes in technology and the economy in the past two years. In… [Read More]

A Matchmaking Tool: Publisher’s Marketplace
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July 17, 2011

Swenson Book Development, LLC works to match an author’s project with an agent or publisher. Our success in doing so makes many people wonder how we do it. Drawing back the curtain on the Wizards of Bookery, we reveal one of the methods employed in our toolkit to serve our clients’ objectives. Publisher’s Marketplace is the largest online network of publishing professionals. Our professional subscription… [Read More]