Early in my career, I thought a query and a proposal were two names for the same document. Boy, was I confused? A query letter is a short communication to get an agent or publisher’s attention. If your query letter succeeds, they’ll ask for a book proposal. A proposal is a lengthy, detailed document that […]
Ever since I finished my dissertation three years ago, my plan was to turn it into a book. Actually a dissertation is already a book. Mine weighs in at 40,000 words. What I mean is that I want to turn dissertation into a marketable book. Dissertations are not marketable. They are academic and boring. I […]
I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve received very little rejection from the articles I’ve written. In fact, aside from contests, I haven’t won and a few editors who never responded, I can’t recall a single time I’ve heard “No!” But that’s just for articles. For books, my results are different. Half the time, I hear […]
To approach an agent or publisher with our book, we start with a query letter and are ready to follow it with a proposal. For me, writing my first proposal was harder than writing the book. Seriously. To learn about creating proposals, I read blog posts, listened to podcasts, attended webinars, went to lectures, and […]
I like working but not finding work. I like writing but not finding a publisher. Unfortunately, there are similarities. Consider these parallels: 1. The Search For a job, we need to find where to apply. This means looking through help wanted ads, researching companies, and networking with people we know. For writing, this means scouring […]
This week two friends expressed frustration with their attempts at building a platform for their writing. One lamented that with his work, family, schedule, and carving out time to write, he simply doesn’t have time to invest in growing his platform. My other friend is taking an extended break from all blogging and social media. […]
Many writers lament about how hard it is for them to write their own author bio. It doesn’t go as quickly as we think and their optimum message is harder to craft. It’s best to have our author bios written before we need them. And even if our pre-written bios don’t provide the right slant […]
Hopefully, you’ve given some thought as when is the best time to write, as well as where is the best place to write. Even if these decisions are works in progress, needing to be fine-tuned, you need to move on. Now we get to the question of what to write. Although, it may seem a […]