Gallery of Tips


  • Marketing tips: fiction
    1. Always write a professional query letter with correct formatting and include an SASE.
    2. If you are going to send multiple submissions, as a courtesy to the agents, let them know in your query letter.
    3. Before submitting a query and a synopsis, go online and read the guidelines. Each of the agents has his or her own unique set of guidelines. Make sure that you follow them to the letter.
    4. Know the marketplace. Don't create adult protagonists for a children's market and vice versa. Make sure that your book fits firmly into a genre and does not straddle a fence, making it hard to place your book in bookstores.
    5. Before you begin writing, read in your genre. Know the market, then begin to write.
    6. Be professional. Never tell an agent your mother loved the book or that your three best friends read it and all loved it.
    7. Try to develop a platform for your book prior to marketing. Join writer's groups. Learn how to speak in front of large audiences. Submit your work to contests. Get smaller pieces published. Join online writers' groups where newsletters will be able to announce your work should it be published. Put together a web site to showcase your writing.
    8. Employ any and all connections at your disposal. Network, network, network.

  • Successful Clients
    1. Take calculated risks.
    2. Listen to the feedback from agents and editors.
    3. Join groups and network.
    4. Read books in their field and books on craft.
    5. Actively market their work.
    6. Learn to write good queries and synopses.
    7. Know the market.
    8. Find a new idea or story, or tell an old story in a unique way.

  • How to Create a Memorable Story
    1. Give the protagonist a burning desire.
    2. Create opposition to that desire.
    3. The opposition should increase in waves that reach higher and appear faster as the story approaches the end.
    4. Each scene should have a clear goal, opposition, and a resolution/ twist that moves the character closer to the story goal.
    5. Make the characters unique instead of perfect. Give them both a character flaw, a weakness, that makes it difficult to overcome obstacles, and a strength that helps them overcome obstacles.
    6. Show, don't tell.
    7. Weave action, emotion, setting, and sensory detail in with dialogue and narration. Learn how to use your narration and dialogue like a brake, to either slow things down, or like a gas pedal, to speed things up.
    8. Make sure the protagonist is the one to achieve the story goal.

  • Why do I need an editor?
    • Most professional writers have editors. Why? A good editor knows the different craft elements that it takes to write a good story. That person stays in tune with the marketplace and knows what sells and why. The editor networks with agents and editors from the houses so that she can better serve you. All of us need editors, including editors. In a time when competition is stiff, professionalism is recognized as an important quality when choosing an author. The houses no longer have the time or money to mentor writers. That's where professional editors come in. We serve as the intermediaries between you and an agent or acquiring editor.

  • What do professional writers know that others don't?
    • They know that to be a professional writer, they must treat it like a profession, and education is a necessary part of any career. That means reading, taking classes, and hiring an editor or mentor to help apprentice the author. What does the professional writer know that the rest don't know? It takes a professional to become a professional.