Ten Common Mistakes from a Literary Agency Point of View

checklistA little while back, I attended a class offered in conjunction with the Miami Book Fair International led by Amy Rennert. Her literary agency, The Amy Rennert Agency, includes authors such as Herman Wouk, Jimmy Buffett, and dozens of other New York Times and national bestsellers. Throughout the two days, I developed a list of the top ten mistakes writers make that will assure that your decline letter goes out by page five.

In no particular order, here is my list. Continue reading “Ten Common Mistakes from a Literary Agency Point of View”

Oops, I Did It Again: Creative Nonfiction Wants Essays About Mistakes

Creative Nonfiction wants essays featuring, yes, mistakes. Unfortunate or fortuitous, funny or painful, this magazine wants compelling, well-crafted, true and factually accurate stories that delve into human fallibility in all of its facets.

Prizes:
Best essay: $1000.00
Runner up: $ 500.00

Entry Fee: $20 per entry

Deadline: November 1, 2013

For more information, visit their website.

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Indies Unlimited is pleased to provide this contest information for the convenience of our readers. We do not, however, endorse this or any contest/competition/conference. Participants should always research a conference prior to attending.

Learning the Ropes by Jen Smith

Learning the ropes as a new Indie author is not easy. There is endless information on the web to sort through and countless people and companies offering a wide variety of services for a broad range of prices. I feel compelled to tell folks about an unpleasant experience (to say the least) I had with a company that I overpaid to format my book for Kindle, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble in hopes to save someone from making the same mistake I did. After the blood sweat and tears of actually completing my book and the good fortune of having a close friend that is an amazing editor I made the soul searching decision to publish independently. I’m pretty tech savvy and thought that I might be able to figure out the formatting myself but wanted to make sure it was done correctly so I hired a company out west. The women that ran this company did speaking engagements about the ebook industry and had written a few books herself about writing books to develop your brand. Her website was equally impressive. I went ahead and paid her what I know now is way beyond the going rate for formatting. Continue reading “Learning the Ropes by Jen Smith”