Publishing

Last week the literary agent and soon-to-be author Alia Hanna Habib asked me how I’ve used my experience in the literary world to be a “good author” (my book comes out in July). Yes, this is a brag…

The elevator pitch is a crucial component of your pitch letter to a literary agent, it is a pithy sentence or two that conveys the book’s hook or central concept. Jonny Geller – CEO of The Curtis Brown Group and one of the UK’s foremost literary agents – shares five possible ways of approaching your elevator pitch.

Karen Jones — Early in 2022 I wrote a long Twitter thread of advice on submitting flash fiction. At the time, I had just finished reading 700 flashes submitted to various competitions and journals, so had made notes as I went along, picking out common pitfalls.

What goes in a query letter? How do I write a good hook? How do I find comparison titles for my novel?

If you want to be traditionally published, you're likely to need a literary agent to look after your contracts, translation and TV rights, etc. But how do you go about getting one? 1. TARGET. Make a list of agents who represent work similar to yours. Maybe find out who represents your favourite authors by checking

The query trenches are so tough. I remember them vividly. Today I share my actual query letter, and walk you through it paragraph by paragraph. It’s not perf...

A huge and very beautiful collection of incredible book covers for your inspiration and enjoyment.

Authors are getting a hand from machine learning tools — and some of them think it’s the future of writing.

Looking back at 10 years of Steal Like an Artist

Good news can feel hard to come by these days. That’s why storyteller and photographer Branden Harvey decided to create the...

And how to get one

The rules we follow to "make it" as an artist are made by commercial interests that don't align with ours. And now, it's time for us to take action.

The title to this post is Admiral Ackbar’s greatest fear: It is, indeed, a trap. Because the answer to this question is obvious: you shouldn’t pay anything to get published. Now, classi…

Publishing is the business of creating books and selling them to readers. And yet, for some reason we aren’t supposed to talk about the latter. Most literary writers consider book sales a half-crass / half-mythological subject that is taboo to discuss. Most literary writers consider book sales a half-crass / half-mythological subject that is taboo to discuss. […]

Jonny looks at what lies behind some of the most successful books of recent years. He explores the patterns and trends underlying their popularity and describes what a literary agent looks for in a writer. After spending twenty years as a literary agent, he reveals some of the secrets he has learned and argues about the power of the reader in the making of a bestseller.

Ensure that your work continues to generate earnings for you and your heirs by staying on top of contracts, royalties, licensing, and available formats.

Should you self-publish or traditionally publish? This infographic will help you determine the best choice for you and your project.

The "102-level" words and phrases you'll hear around the publishing world

For those of you who are not authors but readers, librarians, teachers, parents, here's a brief (simplified) rundown of how authors are paid. There are two basic models.

In this week’s blog, Juliet sat down to talk all about book titles - specifically, about how common it is for them to change! Many Mushens Entertainment books originally had different titles - do any of them surprise you?

So, here’s the deal — August for me is, as the kids say, “supa-cray-cray.” I’m working on like, 17 novels and two scripts or something like that. As such, I have put …

Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 100-year archive of POETRY magazine.

Being any good as a publishing commentator requires talking to others, learning varied perspectives, and writing about ideas you didn’t come up with.

Your reading today comes in the form of this Medium article by Heather Demetrios: “How To Lose A Third Of A Million Dollars Without Even Trying.” It’s a good article. I feel deepl…

Here's your secret decoder newsletter

Lots of people want to quit their jobs to become full-time authors. It’s one of the subjects I get asked most about. So, I thought I’d write a quick post detailing my experiences. Twelv…

Authors define speculative fiction and share their tips for writing it, and agents provide advice for getting your work published.

Why do literary agents take so long to respond to submissions from writers? Is it personal? Are there things writers can do to speed up the process? Find the answers here.