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Showing posts from July, 2014

Editing Outside One's Comfort Zone

I have longed for someone to push me to help my manuscript be the best it can be. Finally, I have that. As many of you know, I have the wonderful good fortune to now be mentored by agents Nicole Resciniti and Louise Fury thanks to the RT contest that I placed in. They are taking me in directions I would have never thought to go, to new horizons that I didn't think I could achieve. It isn't easy, but that's all right. I didn't expect it to be. One of the biggest lessons I'm learning is to revise outside of my comfort zone to help transform my manuscript into the very best it can be. I'm also learning to look at the industry, what readers desire, and what genre dictates to help guide me. Don't get me wrong, I am not fitting my manuscript into a mold. But I am looking at each part of the big picture and approaching my writing from a business perspective, not just an emotional one. This is possible one of the hardest things for us writers to do, but it's

New Series from Karen Amanda Hooper!

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Karen Amanda Hooper, author of two of my favorite series,  The Kindrily series and The Sea Monster Memoirs , is releasing a new series, Virtual Arcana. Today, we’re helping her reveal the cover... Karen says: “I love the cover because it represents the story so perfectly—a blend of old-fashioned and techy, romance and magic, reality and illusion, The Notebook meets The Matrix (with a sprinkling of The Giver). Some friends saw an early sneak peek and asked if the girl was real or a CGI (computer-generated image).   That put a huge smile on my face because that is the perfect question for this series.” *insert mischievous smile here* Karen gives huge thanks to friend and talented cover designer, Steve Graham of   the INFINITY CREATIVE ( www.TheInfinityCreative.com ) for making her virtual reality-esque vision a beautiful reality. Virtual Arcana will release this fall serial style, meaning short episodes (averaging 15-20k) will be published frequently (official

Christine Fonseca's Collide Release Celebration

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I'm very excited to be celebrating the release of my friend Christine Fonseca's latest novel. This is one you won't want to miss. Read on for an excerpt and a contest! What if psychic warfare is real??? Christine Fonseca's latest action-packed, heart-pounding thriller COLLIDE, explores the world of psychic warfare with a new twist! The most dangerous secrets are the ones that kill. When a surprising mental breakdown draws too much attention from a secret government group call the Order, 17-year-old Dakota discovers that her so-called boring life isn’t so boring after all. Between the lies, secrets and assassins out to kill her family, Dakota discovers there’s more to paranormal activity than ghosts and cheap mind tricks. Now she must uncover the truth before a new breed of terrorism takes everything away – including her life. AMAZON   |   iTUNES   |   BARNES & NOBLE    |  KOBO Early Praise: "Collide is a fast moving, suspenseful thriller full of

What Makes An Agent Fabulous?

When I was researching clients of the agents who asked for my work at RT , I came across a lot of authors who said they were 'repped by the fabulous' so and so. It made me wonder what made them fabulous. Was it excited newly repped authors, or something deeper? After pitching to the agents and receiving requests from several of them, it turned out it was much deeper. What makes an agent perfect for an author is different for every pair but there were enough consistencies that revealed what made them 'fabulous' to me. Sitting at coffee with two such fabulous agents, and listening to them talk about their clients who were preparing for the big book fair happening two floors above, I heard some things that really made me smile. One of the agents was concerned that one of her clients didn't have a stylus for the eBook signing. She had looked everywhere, even went to the shop across the way to try and find one. The other agent said she could borrow hers if need be. Ver