A perfect, real-world example of the power of author brand comes from looking at the sales of a book called The Cuckoo’s Calling by John Galbraith. According to Peter Hildick-Smith, founder of the Codex-Group, when first released in April 2013, the book sold 449 copies. A few months later, after it was revealed that Galbraith was a pen name […]
Q. I’ve had some really interesting and unique life experiences, and my friends keep encouraging me to write about them. From a market standpoint, is it a better idea to write a memoir, or to use those experiences as inspiration for a novel/work of fiction?
I wish I could answer this question with a bullhorn at every conference […]
Economists talk about Gresham’s Law—in simple terms, bad money drives out good. When a country goes off the gold or silver standard in favor of paper money, many people hoard gold or silver coins. Which would excite you more, a shoebox full of paper money, or a handful of $20-gold pieces? For most of us, gold coins […]
Q. I’ve heard it’s pointless to query between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Are there other times of year that are better or worse for agent responses?
It’s true that publishing slows way down over the holidays (we’re people with families too!) and during the summer doldrums (we love the beach too!), but anything sent during these slow times […]
by Jane Ryder
When I was a kid, my mom — an impressively self-educated poor Tennessean with a high-school education and a fondness for annoying axioms — would say, in a sing-song voice, “Patience is a virtue, and it will never hurt you.” Keeping my mouth shut in the face of such an obvious untruth wasn’t easy, but […]
Sub-genres of any kind can be difficult to nail down, but in the genres of fantasy and science fiction it’s not easy to even get them to hold still. The principle reason for this is that these two genres are often collectively called “speculative fiction” because they deal with the question “What if . . . ?” […]
