What’s in a Query? Everything and Nothing.

When I tell people that I’ve never written a query that didn’t result in a request for pages, they can’t believe it. When I tell them I only ever sent out three (or six if you count the random assignments I was given to pitch to at conferences) queries, they are shocked. But here’s the thing: I researched before I […]

Conference Tiffs and the Polite Lie

This month’s MWA meeting was about conferences. I personally think that if you can afford conferences, you should go, because nothing else works quite so well to get your name out there and allow you to meet people you might want to work with in the future. That said, I have a few thoughts on the topic of things that

Timelines and Series Bibles

When I got a two-book contract after having written only a single book in my romantic suspense series, I found myself presented with several problems. First: a deadline. After all, I’d taken forever to write the first book, and I couldn’t do that with the second. And second, I had to remember everything from the first book so that I

Pathways to Publication

We all know that in a mystery the most obvious suspect, the first “person of interest,” isn’t always the culprit. The same is true of pretty much every aspect of publishing. There’s a lot—and I mean a lot—of debate, acrimony, and bad information out there about what you can or should expect, or what you’ll be doing as an author

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