In publishing, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of industry jargon and abbreviations. I've listed some of the most common ones here. Acquisitions: This is a phase in the manuscript purchasing process, when the acquiring editor pitches your book to others at their publishing house in order to convince them… Continue reading Glossary of Publishing Terms and Abbreviations
Author: Avery Ames
5 Quick-&-Dirty Query Tips
In the buildup to Pitch Wars submissions, a lot of queries are flying around the writing world right now. And I'll admit, I'm a bit of a query junkie. I write them for works-in-progress as practice. I've read the entire QueryShark archive and listened to every Print Run query episode. I spent hours in the… Continue reading 5 Quick-&-Dirty Query Tips
Grammar Quick Bites: Gerunds
Welcome to a new blog post series on tidbits of grammar trivia and terminology. We'll cover some interesting things you may not have learned in school, or might have forgotten since then. Today, gerunds! So what's a gerund? It's a tricky little beastie, a word that's based on a verb and looks like a verb,… Continue reading Grammar Quick Bites: Gerunds
Using Key Traits to Create Complex Characters
First, a disclaimer: I'm in no way affiliated with the Character Trait Thesaurus books I'll be using in this article, and I haven't been compensated for endorsing them. I just really love using them as a resource. Character development. There are worksheets galore on the internet, varying from ones that ask about a character's favorite… Continue reading Using Key Traits to Create Complex Characters
The “How I Got My Agent” Post
The short version: good, old-fashioned querying. The long version? Well, that's a little more detailed. First we have to go back a little. The book that my agent signed was the second I queried (though far from the second I completed). I'd previously queried another novel, though not very widely. When I queried my first… Continue reading The “How I Got My Agent” Post