Intern lessons: Take your finger away from the send button...

I've read a lot of manuscripts and written a lot of assessments since starting my internship with Entangled. I've seen the range, from great to 'did they just finish their first draft and call it done?'. The single most common thing I end up writing in those assessments is: the premise has great potential, but the execution just doesn't live up to it.

So often I see a manuscript that has the potential to be amazing, but the amount of work involved in making it so is just too much for a busy editor with a mountain of work already sitting on their desk. Often the issues with the manuscript are things the author could have fixed themselves, if they'd done a little research or sought the help of a CP or beta reader (or even just moved from draft 1 to draft 2). By not making that little bit more investment in their work those authors have lost a potential opportunity.

So, first intern lesson learnt: make sure you're sure, like really really sure, your MS is in tip top condition (and I don't just mean spelling mistakes) before sending it off to your dream publishing house/agent. Sometimes, when you've been working so damned hard on that story, it's easy to get impatient. If you're feeling impatient then find yourself a beta reader and use the time it takes them to read and assess your MS to take a step back and think about something else for a while. Who knows? Maybe they'll think your MS is ready too!

Mmk, I know that this intern lesson is one all my writer friends who read this already know. We follow the online writer community and educate ourselves on this stuff, right? (Surprisingly, a lot of the MSS I read with easy to fix issues come from authors who do have an online presence.) I've read a lot of agent blogs saying they wished people would make sure they were ready to submit before doing so, so it's not like it came as a surprise to me, but it is very interesting to see the trend in practice.

Have you every submitted or been tempted to submit, even though you know your MS isn't quite ready? What are your experiences with this?

Why I'll be back soon

As many of you know, since I've blogged about it a few times, I'm uhh ... kinda ridiculously busy at the moment. I don't have free time. This blog post is eating into time when I should be editing a short story for one of my internships.

I don't have time for blogging. I don't have time for writing. I don't have time for reading (unless it's a manuscript for my other internship).

The whole reason I decided to get into publishing in the first place was because of my love of the above things. I've decided something needs to change.

The thing is, I really enjoy both of my internships, and I get a lot of really good and valuable experience from them. The one part of my life that isn't making me happy at the moment is my job. Sure, it's in a publishing company, but... that's not enough.

Here's what I knew when I decided I was going to change industries: I'd have to start at the bottom, and I'd have to do some jobs I wasn't particularly fond of in order to get to where I wanted to be. What I hoped was that, while doing the jobs I wasn't fond of, I would get some sort of development, exposure to the types of jobs I wanted to do. Growth.

I'm not currently getting any of that in my job. The experience I get from my internships I value far more than what I get from my job (I don't want to be an administrator, I want to be an editor in a trade publishing company). But I can't keep doing it all.

So I quit my job.

From the 25th of May I will no longer be a publishing assistant. I will still be an intern at Entangled reading slush and writing manuscript assessments. I will still be an intern at Aurealis editing short stories and preparing the magazine for ePub. I love both of them. I will still be a student.

I will be a writer, blogger and reader again.

I'll be back!

Asking Amazon to listen

Hi everyone, today I'm going to post something from my friend Sarah Billington, who can say this much better than myself:

As you know, independent authors put a lot of time and energy into our writing and we are so thankful for the opportunity Amazon provides for us to earn a living doing what we love. Except a lot of that living is stripped from us through bank charges for processing international cheques.

I was excited to receive my first two cheques recently, smallfry compared to some authors, one was for $17, the other for $56. Except my bank charges $25 to bank a single cheque.

For my $17 cheque, I will be paying THEM to bank it for me. If I choose not to cash in my royalties on that $17 cheque, it makes it nothing but a pretty piece of paper. A piece of paper that represents about 51 readers.

Of my $73 in royalties, $50 would go toward bank fees, leaving me with $23US (not that I can actually deposit the $17 cheque at all). BEFORE currency conversion to Australian dollars.

I am just one example. Other banks charge $40 to process international cheques. I have heard of another author whose country of residence will not process US cheques so they have to GO TO ANOTHER COUNTRY to deposit royalties.

Smashwords pays authors via PayPal so it can't be too hard for Amazon to do so, or update Amazon Payments so that international users can be paid that way as well.

It would also save Amazon money on international postage of cheques. Win-win, right?
I know and believe that Amazon cares about its authors and this step would help us all across the globe.

If you are interested in Sarah's message and would like to support the cause, please visit her petition here. And feel free to spread the word!


What are your thoughts in this? Do you think Amazon can be convinced to change? Do you think it's necessary? Are you a self-published author having a similar problem?

The e-book pricing conundrum. How much are they worth?

One of the biggest debates happening in the book world these days is: how much is an e-book worth? And what is that worth based on? How do we balance the reader’s loss in utility from not being able to touch or see or smell their book (all important if you’re a book lover) against authors’ income and publishers’ revenues? People still need to make money. If they’re not making money they’re not going to keep making books.

I come at this issue from two different perspectives: the reader, and the writer who also works in publishing. So far, I’m finding it very hard to merge these two perspectives. (Dual personalities of a writer’s brain come forth.)

The reader:

When you buy a traditionally published e-book you’re often paying close to the same price as you would for the p-book version. As a reader of both e- and p-books, I have an issue with this. I prefer p-books. I like to feel them. The smell of them. To look at them on my bookshelf even after I’ve finished reading them. If I have a choice, and the price is similar, I’m going for the p-book every time.

E-books, for me, are about convenience and cost saving. Add in the fact that, according to publishing consultant David Amerland, when you spend money on an e-book you’re not actually purchasing the book, only access to the book, why should I spend the same amount as I would to purchase, and own, a p-book?

The writer and publishing industry employee:

A lot of readers think the way I do about the costs of e-books. What they don’t realise is that, for a traditional publisher, there is very little difference between the cost of creating an e-book or p-book. Sure, e-books don’t have printing costs, but they do still have editing, design, marketing, author fees and a whole host of other costs associated with them. You might be surprised to know that the printing cost associated with a single book is usually only around a couple of dollars.

So the question is: how do the big publishers compete when consumers aren’t willing to pay what the publisher needs to survive? Throw in the likes of Amazon, who willingly forces the price point of e-books down so they can sell more Kindles and put competitors out of business (predatory pricing), and you’ve got the publishers in a sticky situation.

The only people meeting the market’s price expectations are self-publishers, who are able to sell their books at very low prices because they have almost no overheads. The market is happy (yay)! The publishers are not. Although whether the market is truly happy could be questionable. There are a lot of self-pubd works out there that wouldn’t know a second draft if it bit them in the bum, but that’s a post for another day.

Here’s a quote from author Stuart Neville that I think sums up the writers' perspective:

"I'm amazed that people are that cheap. Do they think a year of my life is worth less than $9.99? Do they really believe that 10 to 12 hours of entertainment isn't worth the equivalent cost of two or three coffees, or less than two beers?"

What are your thoughts on the e-book pricing conundrum? Do you have no problem paying close to the same price for an e-book as you would for a p-book, despite the perceived loss of worth? Or will you only buy self-pubd e-books and continue to buy p-books from the traditional publishers? I’m interested to hear where everyone else stands on this issue!

Coming out of hibernation

Hello - ello - ello?
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anybody home?

Ahh Pink Floyd, you sum up the situation so well. Have any of you stuck around after I abandoned you? I'm sorry. Really and truly. I know it's no excuse, but let me summarise my life over the last couple of months:

Work, school, drive, eat, sleep, work, homework, eat, sleep, work, school, assignments, sleep...

And it's not over yet, but it will be soon. Currently I have a 40% assignment (on publishing production schedules) due in a week and a half, and an exam and a test to study for. And then, on the 12th of October, I'm free! Well sort of, I still have a full-time job, but at least my nights and weekends will be mine again.

So I just want you all to know I'm coming back - I miss you! And I miss writing. And my characters. And having a life.

In the meantime, I'll live vicariously through you. How are you all? How's your writing? Are you all winning?

Hello, my name's Sari and I've been a Tweeter for ten months...

...with no sign of giving it up any time soon.

And anyway, why would I want to? Since I've been on Twitter, I have:

• made new writing friends
• found new agents, publishers, editors and authors to stalk (not creepy, I promise)
• gotten new traffic to the blog
• been directed to a number of amazing and helpful articles on writing that I never would have found by myself
• been able to chat in live time with real agents, and get their advice
• participated in Tweet chats on the craft of writing (my favourite is #YAlitchat)
• been directed to jobs and internships to apply for.

Before I signed up for Twitter I thought it was just another way for 14-year-old girls to write in 140 characters or less what they had for lunch that day, and to stalk Justin Bieber. When I signed up, I was sceptical at best about what I would get out of Twitter. But I thought I may as well check out what all the fuss was about. As you can see, I'm glad I did.

 

I thought I'd share some of the things I've learned about using Twitter from the perspective of an aspiring writer building her platform. A guide from a non-expert, you might call it.

 

~ If you haven't signed up yet, go do it! You're missing out on a world of new contacts, information and advice. Make sure your Twitter account isn't private. The whole idea of Twitter is connecting with people, and putting up this major roadblock won't help.

~ Once you're the owner of a shiny new account, before you do anything else, write your bio and upload a picture. (If you have a Twitter account already and haven't done this step, I recommend doing this now).

If I get an email saying I have a new Twitter follower, and that person has no bio and no picture, usually I just delete without following them back. Why? Because they haven't made the effort, so why should I? There are gazillions of worthy people to follow on Twitter, so make it easy for people to want to follow you. Here are some tips from social media expert Marian Schembari on writing your Twitter bio.

~ Sign up for TweetDeck or similar program. Trust me, if you use the Twitter website for tweeting, you'll never discover how awesome Twitter can be.

~ Before you start following people, send a few tweets. Post a link to a helpful blog post you've found. Search the #amwriting or #writing hashtags and send some encouragement to someone who's hit a writing milestone. Say something about your own writing for the day. Why do you do this before following people? The second thing I do after checking the bio to decide if I will follow someone is to check their Tweetstreem. If there's nothing there it's hard to tell if this is the sort of person I want to follow or not.
 
~ Follow! Search Twitter for writers, agents, publishers and whoever else you want to follow. Visit your favourite blogs and see if there is a link to the blogger's Twitter page. Check out the 'following' lists of the people you follow and follow some of the same people. Don't go overboard to start off with. You don't want a 'following' to 'follower' ratio of 1000 to 10.

~ Learn about hashtags and how to use them. Here's a list of hashtags for writers.

~ Participate in Twitter chats for writers. You learn heaps and meet heaps of cool people.

~ Keep your tweets balanced. Talk to people, post interesting articles, post links to your own blog posts, post updates in general. Try not to focus on any one of these.

The last thing I look at when deciding if I will follow is what a person is tweeting about. If their feed is full of self-promotion and links to their own blog, I don't follow. If their feed is full of updates to the world, but no actual interaction with other people, I don't follow. If their feed is full of links and RTs (retweets of other's posts), I don't follow.

This might sound a bit strict, but again there are so many people to choose from in Twitterland, and I'm there to meet and interact with people, not to be tweeted at or bombarded with links. It's like writing a good character: the reader needs to connect with you before they care what you have to say.

~ Have fun!

Also, here's a post from Marian Schembari on why you might be struggling to get followers, this Twitter Guide for Writers by @inkyelbows is a great resource, and Kristen Lamb has a regular Twitter Tuesday post with lots of good info.

Have you signed up for Twitter? What's the best thing that's happened to you since you started using it? Are you just starting? Is there anything you find confusing?

I think I may be permanently cross-eyed

I really feel for the people who work long hours in publishing houses and as freelance editors, copy editing and proofreading people's work. I mean, I actually enjoy doing this - sometimes.

I'm working on my second assignment right now, copy editing an excerpt from a book on soccer, and the particular section I'm working on is a history of the soccer world cup. Seriously mind-numbing business.

And I guess this is the thing, I want to be in publishing. I want to be an editor. Admittedly I'd prefer to be a content editor, but I'd still be happy doing copy editing.

As long as it was on a topic I found interesting. The whole reason I'm trying to get into publishing in the first place.

My ultimate dream is to work on YA fiction (obviously), but the publishing industry is so competitive and so difficult to get into, that I would be ecstatic to be doing almost anything, so long as I had my foot in the door...

...I just hope it's not copy editing books on soccer.

How's your week treating you? Are you getting words? Succeeding?

PS. This is where I was earlier this week. Aussie is a cool country!

Series and the 'no cliffhangers' rule

As a writer, with the hope to one day be published, I've been trying to learn about as many of the rules of the trade as possible. One such rule was really grinding my gears: if you're writing a series, make sure each book can stand-alone - no cliffhanger endings!

My 'newby writer' brain did not like this rule. But it's a whole story told in two books! I thought, How can the first book stand-alone? And cliffhangers are exciting! They make people want to know what happens next, right? RIGHT?

Well, yes. Here I switch into my 'long-time reader' brain. I do love a good cliffhanger. It's usually the reason I end up reading till three in the morning, because when I get to the end of a chapter I can't stop. I have to keep going.

Note I said chapter. Last night, at one in the morning, I finally managed to reconcile my reader and writer brains on this particular rule. How? I finished reading the fourth book of the Mortal Instruments series, City of Fallen Angels, by Cassandra Clare. It ended like this:



Is that guy really naked and hanging from a cliff with not even a rope? I think he might be...

Maybe my reaction was supposed to be: Wow, what a cool CLIFFHANGER ending, now I will wait patiently until the next book is released in... May 2012!

But I did not do that. Instead I went: Aaaargh! I am so frustrated right now. I do NOT want to be left hanging for over a year to find out what happens. And now I'm ANGRY.

I did try to do this quietly though, because it was 1am and Ollie doesn't understand the need to read until the early hours of the morning, and would have also been angry if I'd woken him with a book tantrum.

So, the effect on my reader brain? Not so good. Will I buy the next book in the series? I don't know, if I'm honest. When May 2012 comes around, if I even remember reading the series, I'll be a bit worried that I'm going to be left with another cliffhanger ending which won't be resolved until September 2013 with book six.

I know that this is an unavoidable issue of traditional publishing that plagues series, and authors have no control over pub dates, but they do have control over the endings in their books, and not agitating their readers.

Oh! I get it now! says my writer brain.

I do wonder though, will self-pubbing change this? Would I be more forgiving if I only had to wait a few months until the next installment? Probably.

What do you think? Am I being too harsh? Do cliffhanger endings make you mad, and potentially harm an author's readership? Or are you willing to wait for the next book?

Share the Birthday Love Blogfest Post

Since finishing the first draft of my WIP, I've started trying to write a query letter. I know I'm still a long way away from querying anyone, but I figured it's going to take me a while to get it right. And it is. It's HARD!

Anyway, my query has been through a few iterations since the first version. My most recent version (only the part about the story) is under the tab 'Blood Dragon' above. I've had some feedback on Nathan Bransford's forum asking for more feedback, so I've tried to steer away from previous versions. I'm struggling with length (358 words!) and just the query in gerenal. Any feedback would be wonderful!

I will be getting around everyone's entries tomorrow morning. Can't wait to read them all! (I would have done this sooner, but my dad is in Japan so it's been a stressful day! He's ok though.)


QUERY: Blood Legacy (YA Fantasy)

Dear [Agent],


The people of Dereshan have waited centuries for their saviour, a child with two-toned eyes and the heir of the last dragon queen. But for Dani Strider, ignorant of her heritage after growing up on earth, the uncontrolled magic coursing through her is a curse. All it’s ever gotten her is loneliness.

When Dani wakes to strangers in her home the last thing she expects is to meet the family she thought were nonexistent. Her joy at the discovery is ripped away when they vanish, fading into the woods behind her house. The only evidence of their visit is a cryptic message: if he comes, you must follow.

Dani’s anger at the loss unleashes her magic and wreaks destruction on her surroundings. She wakes in a blast crater, a giant gray dog at her side, and an expression all too human in his eyes.

Dani follows the dog to Dereshan, only to discover he has a voice, an attitude, and far too many secrets. His help doesn’t come free; he wants to be healed and Dani’s the only one who can do it. What he means by that he refuses to tell.

The long-lived tyrant Vaddrin controls the world of Dereshan using fear and dark magic, and is soon to find the Dragons’ Histories, a weapon that will give him dominion over not just Dereshan, but all its parallel worlds, including Earth. According to an ancient prophecy, Dani’s the only one who can stop him, and he wants her dead.

Dani discovers her ancestors are the founding members of a society called the Kaardrivaal, the only opposing force against Vaddrin. If Dani bends to fate she will join the war against Vaddrin, and it will likely cost her life. But she is determined to choose her own path, and by doing so she may lose the one thing she’s always wanted: her chance to claim her place in the world.

BLOOD LEGACY is a young adult fantasy of approximately 84,000 words. It is a complete story with strong series potential. This is my first novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Kind regards,

Sari Webb

Allow me to have a minor public freak-out... and an award

Some of you may know I recently decided to drastically change the course of my career. I resigned my job at a bank in New Zealand and applied for publishing and editing courses in Melbourne, Australia. I was lucky enough to get into the Graduate Diploma in Editing and Publishing at RMIT University in Melbourne, which I am very happy about.

Today is the first day of my course. Right now I feel like it's the first day of school and I'm feeling VERY nervous. I'm starting to second guess myself and wondering if I'm going to be good enough. The course is, after all, aimed at people already in the publishing industry and I have no relevant experience (other than a summer working in a book shop - which I loved).

Couple that with the fact that I went to eleven different schools, and I feel like somewhere along the way I missed a very important lesson on grammar (what the hell is a dangling modifier, anyway?) and you get a minor freak-out.

EEEP!

Ok... deep breath. I will be calm. I can teach myself grammar. I've learnt by myself before. Must control tummy swirling.

Aaand... moving along.

A few awesome bloggers have sent the stylish blogger award my way. Be sure to check out the blogs of Vicki Tremper, Shelley Batt, Alison Miller, and Cleveland Dietz.

I have recently done a vlog for this award, telling seven things about myself. I'll add a few more:

1. I'm not familiar with the specifics of grammar, although I think I instinctively get it right some of the time (but not all).
2. I have bad circulation. My feet and hands always seem to be cold.
3. Even though I feel the cold badly, one of my favourite things to do is skiing on Mt Ruapehu in New Zealand. It's also one of my favourite places in the world.
4. I talk to my cat. She's silly.

And I'm passing the award on to these other totally awesome bloggers:

Bess Weatherby

Chantele Sedgwick

Christine Bryant

Meredith

Be sure to check them out!

So have you had any minor freak-outs lately? Is there anything you're both excited and nervous about? I'd love to hear!

PS. If you haven't checked out the Birthday Love Blogfest yet, have a look. You could win a book and get some helpful advice in the process.

My favourite things I learnt last week from the writing bloggerverse... aka weekly mashup

I have a list saved to My Favourites in my browser called the Daily Clicks. As the name suggests, every day I go through the daily clicks and see what's new. Most people would use a feed reader to do this, but I prefer to actually go to the blog or web page and see all the pretty shiny things that the creator has put there.

So I thought I'd do a post on my favourite things learnt this week in my exploration of the writing webs.


1.  Janet Reid and Writer Beware both posted on the dangers of competition clauses, and one competition in particular. Long story short, if you are considering entering any sort of writing comp, read the fine print in full. And if you see anything like this:

By submitting an entry, all entrants grant Sponsor the absolute and unconditional right and authority to copy, edit, publish, promote, broadcast, or otherwise use, in whole or in part, their entries, in perpetuity, in any manner without further permission, notice or compensation.

Run. Run away fast and far. And don't part with your hard earned dollars to enter a competition that basically means you've granted the competition holder the right to use your work in any way without notifying or compensating you. Not. Good.


2.   Shallee McArthur came up with the idea to do a What's Your Writing Process Blogfest. In her words:

...blog about ANY part of your writing process-- how you create characters, how you plot your novel, how you organize your rewrites, your whole writing process from start to finish, anything.

The blogfest is scheduled for Tuesday the 18th, which for me is now, but for most of the participants is tomorrow, so I thought I'd compromise by posting tonight.

So what are you waiting for? Go sign up. Share your process so we can learn from you.

Aplogies to the guys,
couldn't help myself.



3.   The discovery of Kristen Lamb's blog. She's a writer and social media guru, and blogs about both. I only came across her blog a couple of days ago (via Twitter) and I've already discovered so much good information. My favourite so far is how to take on the Procrastination Pixie. Excellent advice. I've been practicing using the word 'No' every time my mouse wanders toward the facebook/twitter/gratuitous pictures of Ben Barnes button when writing, and so far with good results.

If you're a blogger she also has this awesome series of posts on getting started and staying in the game. More great advice and worth checking out. And yes I'm trying to take that advice. I will blog more regularly. Promise.


4.   Ok, this one's on a more serious note. I've been meaning to blog about this all week, so now's as good a time as any. Author Saundra Mitchell tackles the topic of illegal ebook downloads in her post '"Free" Books Aren't Free'. A quick quote:

I’ve told you before that I made a $15,000 advance on SHADOWED SUMMER. In two years, I’ve managed to earn back $12,000 of that.

It’s going out of print in hardcover because demand for it has dwindled to 10 or so copies a month. This means I will never get a royalty check for this book. By all appearances, nobody wants it anymore.

But those appearances are deceiving. According to one download site’s stats, people are downloading SHADOWED SUMMER at a rate of 800 copies a week. When the book first came out, it topped out at 3000+ downloads a week.

If even HALF of those people who downloaded my book that week had bought it, I would have hit the New York Times Bestseller list.

If the 800+ downloads a week of my book were only HALF converted into sales, I would earn out in one more month. But I’m never going to earn out.

I would recommend reading the whole thing. It really.. sucks (for want of a better word) reading stuff like this. I know no one reading this post would download an ebook, because we're all writers, but we can all help to educate. There are plenty of people out there who don't realise the damage they're doing by downloading an ebook, and they could be our friends or family. So let them know. I'm sure they'll be want to spend a few dollars on books in future.


5.   Not really blogging, but favourite Twitter hashtags this week: #YALitChat, #AskAgent and #AmWriting. Great places for advice, encouragement, and finding like-minded people. Twitter is an invaluable resource for writers, so if you're not there, go to it.


And that's that. My list of favourite (and not so favourite in some cases) things learned and heard this week.

What have you learnt this week? What gems have made a difference to your writing day? Or just your day in general?

The other side of the fence

As an aspiring author who follows numerous industry blogs, always looking for helpful advice, I've seen a lot of information about what to do and what not to do when querying an agent. Which is why, when I came across this comment by Another Anonymous Editor in reply to a post on Betsy Lerner's blog I was somewhat surprised and in a strange way comforted.

Where to start?
Agents who take to Twitter to air a grievance against ONE editor but make it sound as though everyone does whatever it is they’re ticked about. Usually looks something like :”Editors: Don’t do this. It annoys me.” I don’t even care if ALL editors do whatever it is. Kvetching on a public forum, even if you’re not naming names but especially if it’s a blanket whine aimed at all editors who might decide to “annoy” you in future, is unprofessional and whiny and does NOT make me want to work with you.

Agents who set arbitrary deadlines as to when they expect to hear back from me (or….what exactly? You’ll pull the project? You’ll send the Timing Police to rough me up?). These deadlines are ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS ludicrous. I read a project on my schedule, not yours. FYI–those tend to be auto-rejects for me.

Agents who don’t include A SINGLE SENTENCE OF SYNOPSIS in their pitch. Just go on and on about how the author won this award I’ve never heard of or that they’re really good at taking direction. I get to the end of their query and I have no idea what the stupid book is about.

While we’re on pitches, how about lazy agents who don’t even pitch. “Thought you might like this.” I get that from agents I’ve never had a conversation with (and they usually haven’t done an iota of research on my house to see that I don’t do books like that). I’m always tempted to forward the pitch to the author and say, “Is this really who you want representing you? Someone who couldn’t be bothered to actually try to get me interested in your book?”

Agents who see on Publishers Marketplace that I’ve just acquired a book with LGBT subject matter and then bombard me with identical projects, thinking, “Hey, he’s buying LGBT stuff!!” I’m at a tiny press with a diverse list. When you see I just bought an LGBT book, you should send me something completely different.

God, that feels good. Having said all that, I’ve worked with some amazing agents. Agents who really have done their homework and have a lock on what I look for. Agents who write queries so stunning that not only do I request the full manuscript immediately but I stop whatever I’m doing and start reading it the second it’s in my inbox. (OK, that’s only happened twice but it’s happened.) Agents who are patient with the quirks of a small house. Agents who are genuinely interested in helping their client’s careers but only get involved when it’s absolutely necessary (as opposed to, say, micromanaging every step of the process by shooting countless e-mails to editors, publicists, copywriters, and even sales people and trying to dictate what SHOULD be happening).

There are fabulous agents that I adore working with. And there are agents that better hope I’m not the one holding the life preserver when they’re drowning.

Don't worry Aspiring Authors, we're not the only ones with all the guidelines and unwritten rules to follow. Luckily we are intelligent and follow the blogs of agents who wouldn't make these mistakes and know what we need to do to avoid making any agents facepalm in frustration.

Janet Reid also posted this example recently which is probably an example of a the sort of query Anon Editor is talking about.

My biggest challenge (once I'm at that stage) will be writing the query that makes the agent want more. And that's going to be hard enough without shooting myself in the foot without all the other easily avoidable mistakes.

So why do I feel comforted? Because I know I am smart and professional enough not to make these mistakes. Even if I am seeing it from the other side of the fence.

Decisions and Resolutions

It's been a while hasn't it? Sorry about that. I'll be better I promise. The good news is that the craziness of moving is all but over, the only thing left is for our furniture to arrive. It's currently being combed over in quarantine, just to make sure we're not trying to smuggle any evil New Zealand thingies. So I'm writing this from the the couch which is one of four pieces of furniture in our house at the moment, thanks to Mr Rental. I'm so looking forward to my stuff arriving!

In other news, as you know I moved to Melbourne to get into publishing. I applied for the publishing courses at three universities here: Monash, Melbourne and RMIT. Monash offered me a place last month which was very exciting. I was so happy to get into SOMETHING. Then I received an email from Melbourne last week saying they weren't able to offer me a place in the postgrad diploma as my degree wasn't relevant enough (commerce) but they offered me an alternate position in the postgrad certificate. I was also contacted by RMIT at the end of last week with some follow up questions, and was ultimately offered a place in their graduate diploma in publishing and editing.

It's really hard to find comparative information about these courses because I think industry organisations try to stay neutral on the topic, but from the research I did it seems that RMIT's course has the best standing within the industry. They also accept less than 30 new students every year, are only one of two courses in the country to receive accreditation from the Australian Publishers Association, and give precedence to people who already work in the industry.

So I have decided I will be going to RMIT. I'm so excited about this (and surprised - when I get that email I expected something along the lines of "we regret to inform you...") and I can't wait to be starting the course in February. Until then I need to find something to do.

Which brings me to the next part of this post. Inspired by my critique partner Maggie, who was in turn inspired by the Rejectionist's December test run on resolutions, I've decided to get in on the action (only six days late).

I RESOLVE to:

• Write every day for at least 10 minutes (shamelessly stolen off Maggie but with a far less ambitious goal. Small steps right?)
• Find a job! This one's a December and January goal. Since I'm going back to NZ for two weeks over Xmas I'll be realistic about this one.
• Make people Xmas presents this year. But not crappy presents. So I have to figure out how to make good handmade presents that people would be happy to get. Any ideas? (This one relates back to the last one.. I have no job).
• Do some exercise? Hahaha... yea right.

Some of the Rejectionist's pre-resolutions were far too scary for me to even contemplate (NO COFFEE!? I have cut down from four a day to one, but still.. NONE?)

Anyone have any pre-resolutions they'd like to share?

The good news

An update on the changes happening around here.

As you know I'll be heading over to Melbourne shortly. Flights are booked for the 16th of November. Ollie starts his new job on the 22nd of November. I will be a lady of leisure for a few short weeks while we get ourselves set up in Aus and I look for a job.

And also..

I got into Monash's Graduate Diploma in Publishing & Editing! YAY!

So it's back to being a student for me next year, but hopefully (in my ideal situation) I will also be working part time for a publishing company. I have had a response from one of the small publishers saying they would like to meet with me when I get to Aus so that is also exciting news :).

So yes.. that's everything up to date.

Now I just need to do some writing.