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Showing posts from 2018

What My Dog Has Taught Me About Life

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Dobby is a 15-year-old mouthy miniature pinscher with cataracts in his eyes, a limp from being run over by a car a decade ago and the heart of a lion... in the body of a puppy. While he barks bloody murder to get anyone to help him down off the couch, he can still jump up to the couch when he thinks no one’s watching. He sleeps a lot now but his ears still perk up at the sound of any crumb hitting the ground and while he can’t really run like he used to, he still canters like a mini stallion on his infrequent walls. He avoids the outdoors if it’s raining, refuses to eat soft foods despite not having most of his teeth and gets in your face to sniff you when he can’t see you, which is most of the time now as his eyes cloud with cataracts. But he still gets playful, crouching down, his butt and tail wagging when he’s offered a snack and prancing around my husband’s buddies while they play cards in hopes of a few table scraps. As I get older and the body aches a

Why We Need More Male Friendship Books

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Photo by Papaioannou Kostas on Unsplash I'm a sucker for friendship stories. If a book has a strong, core friendship that lasts throughout the story, it's a good chance you've hooked me as a reader. Some of my favorite stories are adventure stories where a group of friends help each other achieve an impossible feat or where the main character defeats their nemesis with the help of their friends . Photo by Aman Shrivastava on Unsplash But while good friendships make for good stories, we don't encourage male friendships to thrive beyond childhood, and we don't encourage physical affection between them to extend beyond puberty. We tend to sexualize their bonds instead, creating rifts and establishing an environment of toxic masculinity . We tell our boys to be boys, to stop crying, to stop feeling or showing emotion after they reach a certain age (an age arbitrarily chosen by parents or the community they're raised in, by the way). We teach our boys

5 Things To Know When Negotiating a Deal Sheet

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Continuing my birthday-month blog series, this week, we'll go over the negotiating a Deal Sheet. Also known as the Offer Letter, the Deal Sheet is the first step in your negotiation of a publishing contract. It is usually a one-page document attached to an email, or embedded into the email, detailing what the publisher is offering to publish the work. It is generally received after a phone conversation between the agent and the acquisitions editor (or the acquisition editor and the author) where the deal points are discussed. Deal sheets are not a contract but they are generally a viable offer that a publisher has put on paper for the agent to take to the author and/or approve/reject on the author’s behalf. It details general points (deal points) that the publisher is willing to offer the author in exchange for the right to publish the work. It’s important to understand and review these points well before agreeing to them as these are generally the first opportunity you have

Author Platform and Branding for Fiction Writers

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It’s my birth-month and I think it only fitting that I dedicate it to launching a new blog series. This week we’ll discuss establishing an author platform and tying that your author brand. After all, readers are buying you when they look for your titles, not your publisher, or your editor, or even your adorable, Puertorican literary agent with a penchant for coffee and gifs in everything. Aren’t platforms for nonfiction writers and 70s shoes? An author platform is as vital to the fiction author as it is to the nonfiction author and it encompasses everything from blogs to social media presence, speaking engagements and media contacts. But simply put, platform is the “ability to sell books because of who you are or who you can reach.” – Jane Friedman So what’s a platform and why do you need one? "Platform is the ability to get people to follow and find you for information and guidance." - Chuck Sambuchino,  Create Your Writer Platform It's what you do before

5 Things Every Query Letter Should Have

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You've likely spent a few months revising your manuscript, making sure to remove clutter words , tighten scenes , strengthen plot-lines and create kick-ass characters you're sure readers are going to love (or hate). It is now ready to go out to agents and editors in hopes of publication. But agents receive thousands of queries per month, how do you make yours stand out? First and foremost, remember that your query is a letter and should be addressed as such . You can address the agent with the standard Dear Saritza, or Ms. Saritza (though I prefer the informal Hi Saritza to Ms. or Mrs.) but DO NOT start your query with To Whom It May Concern, Dear Agent or Ladies and Gentlemen. Our names are everywhere, take the time to personalize your query and make the effort to show the agent you've done your research. I recommend reading How To Write A Query Letter by Rachelle Gardner as the first stop in your research. Her blog is a an invaluable resource to aspiring authors,