Writer’s Nook

Great resources to start with:

• Nathan Bransford’s blog
• Writer’s Digest
• Janet Reid’s blog
• Bookends Literary Agency’s blog
• Gabe’s Writability
• Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry’s The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published: How to Write It, Sell It, Market It…Successfully. An “all-in-one guide to publishing,” if you will. Check out my detailed review here.

For drafting:

• Donald Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel: a great read for those who struggle with plot. Great to read while planning out your book or during revisions, especially if you’re stuck. This helped me a lot with pacing, and helped me cut the fat from my manuscript.

Revisions:

• My posts here and here

About genres and categories:

• Writer’s Digest University’s article
• Rachelle Gardner’s post
• Janet Reid’s post

Wordcount:

• Jennifer Laughran’s post
• Bookends Literary Agency’s post
• Andrea Hurst & Associate’s post
• Literary Rejections’ post
• Daily Writing Tips’ post
• Colleen Lindsay’s post

Writing your query:

• Query Shark
• Writer’s Digest’s Successful Queries Series
• My blog post on common query issues (undefined stakes, vague wording/clichés, too may characters/teminology, info-dumping, no hook to start, unclear transitions, listing a series of events, unclear character motivations)
• My Query Help posts

Compiling list of agents to query (also useful for personalizing queries):

• Acknowledgement sections of books like yours
• MSWL
• Writer’s Digest’s Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market
• Publishers Marketplace
• Querytracker
• Casey McCormick’s fabulous Literary Rambles

For diverse books:

• Writer’s Digest list of 30 Literary Agents Seeking Diverse Books
• Lee Wind’s agent interviews were especially helpful
• I searched “multicultural” and “diverse” on MSWL

Formatting:

• Chuck Sambuchino’s Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

The Call:

• My blog posts
  • Before the Call (what to prepare)
  • The Call (what questions to ask)
  • After the Call: Client References
• Jim McCarthy of Dystel’s blog post
• Rachelle Gardner’s blog
• Literary Rambles’ post

Multiple Offers:

• My post here
• Lydia Sharp’s posts on The Daily Dahlia, part I and II
• MarcyKate Connolly’s guest post on Chasing the Crazies

Submission:

• My post here
• Mindy McGinnis’ Submission Hell – It’s True (SHIT) Interview Series
• Rachel Lynn Solomon’s lovely blog post about her submission journey
• Amy Trueblood’s Behind the Curtain post

Live-pitching Agents

• Logistics of Pitch
• Writing Your Pitch
• Pitch Templates
• Practice
• Pitching
• Questions to prepare for: Literary Agent Eric Smith’s post