Today I’m on the virtual road with an agent-author chat on Krista Van Dolzer’s blog. She interviewed me and my agent, Elizabeth Bewley of Sterling Lord Literistic, about how we connected. You can read the interview here: http://kristavandolzer.blogspot.com/2018/11/agent-author-chat-elizabeth-bewley-and.html If you’ve been following my blog for a while, Krista’s name should be familiar. We first met…
querying
I Have An Agent!
Dear friends, I have been waiting to write this post for SEVEN YEARS! If you’ve been following me for a while, you already know that, but if you stopped by because you love how-I-got-my-agent posts, this current story might seem like a bit of a fairy tale, and I want to make it clear that…
What I’ve Learned in Seven Years of Querying
A few weeks ago one of my writing friends posted a wonderfully inspiring tweet: And I replied: Technically, this statement isn’t true. If you’ve seen my posts on tracking my queries, you’ll know that I do keep track of my rejections. However, I’ve never totaled them up for all the manuscripts, and as I thought…
Happy Sixth Blogiversary to Me! With a $25 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway for You …
On May 2, 2012, I hit publish on my first blog post, basically a “Hi, I’m here!” in preparation for the next day, when I posted my entry for The Writer’s Voice contest. Today I’m celebrating six years of blogging. I love all of the people I’ve gotten to know through blog hops like Marvelous…
Tracking Agent Responses & Knowing When to Revise
If you read my posts on Creating a Detailed Spreadsheet and Querying Strategy and Hitting Send, then you know I’m a bit of a statistics freak. Well, I actually take my statistics even a bit farther once I’m querying. I track how agents are responding to my query and pages so I know whether they’re working…
How to Research Agents: Querying Strategy and Hitting Send!
Earlier this week I posted on how to create a detailed spreadsheet, and I realize most people aren’t going to get as detailed as me :). But one of the reasons I have so many columns in my spreadsheet is because I consider a number of factors when I decide how I’m going to approach…
How to Research Agents: Creating a Detailed Spreadsheet
Thanks to my participation in Pitch Wars, I’ve met many wonderful writers through our Facebook group, and we’re in varying stages of the querying process. It’s reminded me that while some, like me, have been doing this a while, others are just starting out. A few years ago I did a series of posts on…
What I’ve Learned in Six Years of Querying
Well, friends, here we are: six years of querying. Three weeks ago I was in New York City with my husband. We went on a bike tour of Central Park, and I have asthma, so that’s already a bit of a challenge. But when you add in a cold, plus the fact that my bike…
My Fifth Blogiversary!! With a Giveaway, Of Course!
As I was lying in bed last night, it dawned on me that I’d missed something important–the anniversary of my very first blog post! Yesterday marked five years of blogging, and I completely forgot to mark it. Oops! And the funny thing is, I completely noted it last week and planned to pull together all…
How to Stalk WriteOnCon Ninja Agents 2017
If you’re in the kidlit community, you probably know about WriteOnCon and missed it as terribly as I did in 2015 and 2016. Well, hallelujah, it’s back! I don’t have anything to query at the moment, but I do have a work-in-progress ready for some feedback in the forums, so I’ll definitely be dipping a…
What I’ve Learned in Five Years of Querying
I’ve become a huge fan of the memories that pop up on Facebook. It’s a fun way to look through old photos, videos, and the occasional comment. Anyway, on July 3, a writing-related post showed up that made me smile and shake my head at the naive Michelle of five years ago, but it’s appropriate…
5 Signs You Should (or Shouldn’t) Be Tweeting Tomorrow
Last fall I wrote a popular post featuring two contests that were happening on the same day–On the Block and #PitMad–and I’ve revived it the last couple of times #PitMad popped up, but I decided it was worth updating the post to only cover #PitMad, so here goes. In case you’re new to the Twitter…
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