To give you an idea of what I do as a memoir consultant and developmental editor, I’ll share some about the path I helped this author take to complete his memoir and have it successfully published.
Read more →Archive for the Inside the Book Business Category
A ghostwriter gets to walk in a lot of different people’s shoes. It’s like being an actor. I’ve been a professional singer, a scientist, a philosopher and theologian—and the list goes on. As a ghostwriter I have to sound like my client and then help them sound even better. Good
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It all starts with the first draft. A first draft gives you something to work with so you can get to where you want to go. It’s a necessary step, and hardly the last one.
Read more →Today I heard author Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul and many others) speak. This biggest-ever bestselling author — Canfield has had 47 separate titles on the New York Times bestseller’s list since 1976 — talked about growing up a coal-miner’s son in West Virginia and charting a path
Read more →Writing the stories of your life doesn’t happen in a day. It takes more than inspiration, writing when the urge strikes. It takes time and dedication. It wants the details that lift the story off the page, that take a reader there along with you, that share you with them
Read more →I certainly spend more time thinking about and preparing for successes than rejections when it comes to pitching a book to a prospective agent or publisher, but the stories of famous authors being rejected before their ascent — and in some cases, that is an ascent to legendary status —
Read more →At the Story Circle Network Women’s Memoir Conference in Austin this month I coached several women about query letters to agents and heard their frustrations with repeated rejections. One that stood out to me was a writer who had sent out as many as 60 queries and had no bites.
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