WD Editors

Welcome back to Agents on the Web, our post series featuring Web sites that provide great information about agents.

This installment features a fairly new blog: “Agent in the Middle,” maintained by Lori Perkins. See the blog here.

For anyone who doesn’t know Lori Perkins, she’s one of New York’s best and most accomplished literary representatives. She’s sold books (fiction and nonfiction) for more than 20 years, and usually makes 100 deals a year. With such credentials, it’s no wonder she may have some worthwhile advice and thoughts for aspiring authors. After all, Lori tells it like it is.

One of her most recent posts is “A Day in the Life,” taking readers blow-by-blow through one exhaustive day of being an agent. When you see exactly what goes on in one day, suddenly it isn’t surprising that agents don’t get back to us as quickly as we’d all like. Another post recaps her meeting with a children’s book editor, as the two banter about young adult trends and what publishers are buying. You want to know what happens behind the closed doors of NYC publishing? Then start reading…

And like other agent blogs, Lori talks about the basics, such as when she explains exactly why a referral is so valuable when querying representatives.

Check out her blog; learn a thing or two. I’ll make more posts as time goes on. And, of course, our comprehensive list of literary agents and their specialties, etc., can be found inside Guide to Literary Agents or at WritersMarket.com.

Thanks and best,
Chuck Sambuchino, Editor
Guide to Literary Agents

Writers on the Rise (run by WDB author Christina Katz) has a new dual format. Now, instead of being an online zine, it is a blog and a zine. In other words, readers can choose to either read a blog every other day(and RSS subscribe) at http://writersontherise.wordpress.com

… OR …

receive a round-up of recent posts in their inbox as an html zine. A subscription button/box is available at the new blog and old site: www.writersontherise.com.

Our very own Cap’n George Choundas, author of The Pirate Primer, was one of the featured speakers at the first annual PyrateCon in New Orleans over the weekend. Cap’n Choundas offered these words and photos to recap his fantastic experience in The Big Easy:

“I had a great time. The presentation I gave was on five or six topics in the book, selected as much for their proximity to entertaining anecdotes and riffs (of which there were many) as anything else. Definitely a discussion of ‘arrgh.’ You can’t leave that out, of course. I also threw in three foreign words every pirate should know. The talk was very well attended and, fortunately, preceded rather than followed the extremely amusing presentation by the founders of Talk Like a Pirate Day themselves. The Barnes & Noble on-site vendor reported that the Primer had been one of their best sellers, and they sold out by Saturday mid-afternoon. Conference Director Rudy Arceo was so pleased by the success of this year’s event that he feels next year’s event, held in the heart of the French Quarter, should be even more heavily attended. He kindly invited me to come to next year’s event as well. And New Orleans is still the most beautiful place on earth, flood or no flood.

I had an interview chat on Thursday, such that we caught the following excellent coverage, which was picked up by both CNN and MSN, at least.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/21/pirate.convention.ap/index.html

Also gave a radio interview to BilgeMonkey, which will be airing both excerpts from the interview and excerpts/highlights from the presentation itself from time to time.

Finally, attached are a couple of photos from the presentation. (Apologies for the blurriness of the crowd photo!)”

The Frustrated Writer has posted a review of By Cunning & Craft.

While this book is essential reading (and studying) for beginning writers, the advice that he proffers throughout this book is such that you can, and should, reread it often. Each time you do, you find some new tidbit of information that can be applied to your writing. In addition, the more you write you’ll find that the information in this book takes on new dimensions, allowing you to continually draw sustenance from its pages.

The Frustrated Writer has posted a review of The Rhythm Method, Razzmatazz, and Memory.

The juxtaposition of poetry and music is undeniable, and Flynn’s book is an ideal introduction to the study of this edifying subject. In addition, this book also serves as a poetry primer that will teach you not only the mechanics of poetry writing, but how to find your inner voice and to create dynamic poems.

Last weekend, the nationally broadcast NPR show “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” decided to use Talk the Talk’s Carnival Workers section for their “Not My Job” feature with Julia Sweeney, and mentioned the book in the process. The show is archived here.

One of our most popular backlist books, Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell, was the best-selling title in the trade through the week ending April 15. Click on the cover to read more about this title.

P.S. Once again, our second best-selling title was Writer Mama.

Our very own Kelly Nickell interviewed Kurt Vonnegut in 2001. Writer’s Digest magazine has posted the entire interview on their site.

Whether it’s his seemingly natural ability to create strong characters—”My characters are generally cartoons of various types of Americans”—or his remarkable modesty—”I certainly didn’t expect to succeed to the extent I have. I mean, it’s not phenomenal, but I certainly didn’t expect to amount to much,”—generations of writers continue to try to follow in Vonnegut’s legendary footsteps. And to these aspiring writers, Vonnegut offers simple advice:

“Don’t worry about getting into the profession. Write anyway to make your soul grow. That’s what the practice of any art is, it isn’t to make a living, it’s to make your soul grow.”

And what of the best advice he’s received? “Quit,” he says. “It’s such a relief.”

But he didn’t. “No, I didn’t—I’m still pooping along somewhere.”

Peter Selgin, author of our new fiction writing guide, By Cunning & Craft, has been interviewed recently in two publications.

PIF Magazine Interview: Peter says, “I wanted to be a writer, but I had nothing to write about; well, I didn’t think I had anything. I was greedy for experience, but also still highly susceptible to cliché, as most young writers are. So I succumbed to the ‘geography equals drama’ cliché and ‘hit the road.’ I crossed the country four times, and wound up at some point living in New Orleans, in the French Quarter, where I shared a Queen-sized bed with a homosexual drunk, Don, who lived fully to my notion of a ‘colorful character’ –i.e, he, too, was a cliché.”

Brooklyn Rail: Peter says, “There may be a place for the ego somewhere in the process, but the ego is not a good self-critic or editor, or a good writer. What we need to write is not ego but character, personality. That’s what the reader wants when he opens a book. What I want to see in that very first line—and what I think editors and publishers are looking for—is a human being. That human being may have a lush style or one that’s pared to the bone, but what is essential is an authentic voice. I’m not trying to get my students to clean up their style, but to see the difference between a style that’s superficial and one that’s forced. Ego writing strains for effect and flings thesaurus words. Stronger writing balances fearlessness with the kind of rigor that sees, for instance, that most adverbs and adjectives are to nouns and verbs what packing noodles are to mail-order goods.”

The Frustrated Writer has a nice review of On Writing Romance.

Michaels effortlessly guides you through the ins and outs of the romance world from describing exactly what a romance novel is, and the varied forms it can take from Chick-lit novels to Time-travel romances and some categories you might never have heard of! Michaels also offers practical how-to advice that covers all the essentials from researching your book to marketing your finished novels. In-between, Michaels provides the reader with an excellent, short-course on the mechanics of writing a romance, including how to start your story, how to create sexual tension between your characters, writing dialogue, fine-tuning your plot line, and other necessary skills.