Submit Yourself: A Submissions Calendar is a Smart Idea

Submit Yourself: A Submissions Calendar is a Smart Idea

Image via Free Images

Whether you’re looking to make it big with a book you’re sure is a best-seller, or you’re just interested in breaking through with a few bylines in lit journals that your mother can frame and put on the 'fridge, one of the biggest hurdles is to know where to even send your work--and when.

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Ask The Lit Coach: "Is It Possible To Get An Agent Or Book Publishing Deal Based Only On A Few Short Stories?" and More

Ask The Lit Coach: "Is It Possible To Get An Agent Or Book Publishing Deal Based Only On A Few Short Stories?" and More

I asked for your questions about all things publishing last week and you delivered, LitReactors! This week I'm answering two of the most frequently asked questions I received as an agent and continue to receive as a consultant. As always, I give you my best counsel, straight up. 

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'The Visible Man' by Chuck Klosterman

'The Visible Man' by Chuck Klosterman

Who are you when you’re alone? Are you someone else in a crowd? Is the reality of you fundamentally diminished by the perception of others?

Journalist, essayist and pop culture anthropologist Chuck Klosterman’s second novel, The Visible Man, pulls a pretty slick con on the reader. The book presents itself as a dark sci-fi thriller, riveting and fun, while asking profound questions about the fallacy of scientific observation and the perpetually fleeting nature of reality.

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The Devil in the Details

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The Devil in the Details

Photo by Craig Clevenger

Introduction: The Description Dilemma

Write with verbs and nouns. Show, don't tell. We all know the drill. So how do I write descriptions which, by their very definition, demand adjectives and adverbs? How do I show a woman in a red cocktail dress without simply telling the reader that she wore a red cocktail dress?

The Case for eBook Self-Publication

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The Case for eBook Self-Publication

Header via Free Images

Change is afoot in the publishing industry. Stories about self-pubbed authors making big money have been all over the papers... well, all over the websites of the papers, at least. Stephen Leather! Amanda Hocking! GP Taylor!

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Cavalcade Of Literary Jerks: Part 1

Cavalcade Of Literary Jerks: Part 1

Original Shakespeare portrait via Wikipedia Commons, public domain
All author photos via Wikipedia Commons, public domain

Hero worship is a dangerous proposition, especially in literature. Writers are a notoriously temperamental bunch, and few are suited to a Brad Pitt level of public scrutiny. By putting your favorite author on a pedestal, you are setting yourself up for disappointment should you ever choose to peer behind the curtain.

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"Snuff" by Terry Pratchett

"Snuff" by Terry Pratchett

In the UK, you can’t board a train without seeing someone reading a Discworld novel.  For twenty five years now, people have been reading about the activities of a world that sits on the back of four elephants who stand on the turtle the Great A’tuin as it swims through space. Once a light parody of sword and sorcery fantasy, the Discworld [series] grew in depth and complexity and emerged as a vehicle for some rather profound political thinking and a lot of humour.

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Book vs. Film: Winter's Bone

Book vs. Film: Winter's Bone

Allow me to preface my own megillah: this series is one that focuses on the best effort to tell a story. If a film adaptation is awful, I'm going to tell you. If the book is awful, I'm going to tell you. Perhaps both--reach into recent history and I'm sure you can recall both terrible novels and their ungodly film versions. Think: vampire. If the source material and the film are wildly different, I'm definitely going to tell you. But the story itself is my concern. Sound good? Let’s do this. Beyond here be spoilers.
 

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