Reading as Research

August 24, 2016August 24, 2016Leave a comment

DeathtoStock_Clementine2 You know the feeling. You’re reading a book, and for some indefinable reason it completely sucks you in. When you finish, you seek out the rest of the author’s backlist, and devour them. Wow, you think. This is a really good book!

Great. We all love good books. But as authors, we also want to write really good books. The problem is, a really good book will make you forget you’re reading a story created in the imagination of someone who labored over a laptop for months at their kitchen table. It takes a lot of work to make a book read effortlessly. At the end of such a book, you’re left wondering, how did they do it?

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Pitching the HEA / How to Query Romance Transcript

February 9, 2015March 27, 2016Leave a comment

If you’ve spent time researching how to craft a compelling query, you may have noticed most of the good examples end on a cliff-hanger to generate hook. Will he overcome his past? Will she finally learn to trust? Unfortunately, we already know they will. That is the nature of the Happily Ever After. This #RWChat focused on how best to catch the interest of agents and editors when everyone already knows how it’s going to end.

Guest Hosts:

Kim Lionetti

@BookEndsKim

After starting her career at Berkley Publishing, Kim Lionetti left her position as Senior Editor to join BookEnds in March 2004. As an agent, she still enjoys using her editorial skills to help authors shape their work into more marketable products and guiding them to see their writing as part of the “bigger picture.

Kim’s obsession with books began in middle school when she was introduced to her grandmother’s collection of gothic romances by Phyllis Whitney, Victoria Holt, and Mary Stewart. To this day, Kim harbors a soft spot for dark, tortured heroes, but also enjoys a good romantic comedy. A member of AAR, Kim is looking for fresh voices and compelling storytelling. Her areas of interest are historical and contemporary romance, women’s fiction, cozy mysteries, and contemporary new adult fiction and young adult fiction (except fantasy or sci-fi).

Originally from Pennsylvania, Kim currently resides in New Jersey with her son, daughter, cat, two guinea pigs, and very patient husband, who puts up with her crushes on Mr. Darcy, Eric Northman, blind dukes, and Ryan Gosling.

You can contact her directly at KLsubmissions@bookends-inc.com and see her in person at the 2015 RWA National Conference in New York or the 2015 Malice Domestic Convention in Bethesda.

Ava Jae

@Ava_Jae

Ava Jae is a YA and NA writer, an Assistant Editor at Entangled Publishing, and is represented by Louise Fury of The Bent Agency. Her YA Sci-Fi debut, BEYOND THE RED, is releasing Spring 2016 from Sky Pony Press. When she’s not writing about kissing, superpowers, explosions, and aliens, you can find her with her nose buried in a book, nerding out over the latest X-Men news, or hanging out on her blog, twitter, Facebook, tumblr, Goodreads, Instagram, or YouTube channel.

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Twitter for Writers / First Chat Transcript

February 2, 2015March 27, 2016Leave a comment

Twitter is a great big open platform. Knowing what you should, shouldn’t, and can be doing on it can be daunting. Rachel Miller and Brenda Drake — two twitter powerhouses who have taken the sales and publishing worlds by storm — answered questions on how to leverage twitter for your career without feeling like a book-link megaphone.

Guest Hosts:

Rachel Miller

@rachelloumiller

Host of #SBizHour, Excellence Officer at Broadsuite Media Group, Chief Listener at Nimble. Rachel is an industry leader in influence marketing with close to a decade of experience building strong brand communities through social media.

Brenda Drake

@brendadrake

Brenda Drake grew up the youngest of three children, an Air Force brat, and the continual new kid at school. She hosts workshops and contests such as Pitch Wars and Pitch Madness on her blog, and holds Twitter pitch parties on the hashtag, #PitMad. When she’s not writing or hanging out with her family, she haunts libraries, bookstores, and coffee shops, or reads someplace quiet and not at all exotic (much to her disappointment). She’s represented by Peter Knapp at Park Literary. Look for her upcoming novel from Entangled Teen LIBRARY JUMPERS, releasing January, 2016.