So, over the weekend an author friend emailed me, asking me about discrepencies between bookscan (she got her data through Amazon's author Central, which shows you up to 8 weeks of sales) and her royalty statements. she's not the first person to be confused by the wide gap between the two sources. Some point out that bookscan "fails to capture" ( Read more... )

I was thinking lately about the weird things authors do-- personal tics-- when they write. Overusing certain phrases or terms, bad uses of punctuation, etc.

For me, editing, even copyediting, is rather enlightening.

- I have always said, "She walked towards the street." Um, no. There's not supposed to be an S on there, at least not in the US.

- My ( Read more... )

Step 1: You write the damn book. Yeah, this part is a lot of work. That's what seperates the wussies from the real writers. But that part you knew, right?

Step 2: You revise the damn book. And this doesn't mean running spell check or having your bff Sally proof read it. It means finding critique partners who you may never meet in real life, and ( Read more... )

Hi Guys! I have an exciting project to announce! GETTING CAUGHT, a YA rom-com I cowrote with Cyn Balog, is up on Amazon later this week! You can add it to your goodreads here. Cyn is one of the most talented writers I know-- her paranormal YA romances have been published (and will continue to be published) by Delacorte. As you probably know (since ( Read more... )

So, I got such a fun email over the weekend! It came from Cole Hitchings, the main character in RIPPLE. Erm, I mean it came from a guy named Matt, who is on the cover of RIPPLE. I asked him to answer a few questions, and he was kind enough to indulge me. So... here goes!

Hi Mathew! Can I call you Matt? I feel like we should be on a nickname basis. I ( Read more... )

1) First off, HUUUUUUUUGE congrats to client Lee Bross, whose debut novel (she's writing under Lanie Bross) sold in a pre-empt to Delacorte! Head on over to the party at YA HIGHWAY to congratulate her.

Here's the deal announcement:

Debut author Lanie Bross's FATES, the story of an Executor sent to earth to bring about human destinies, who finds ( Read more... )

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Awhile ago, I blogged about advances, breaking down how big of a check you'd actually see from an average advance, a six figure advance, and a "major" advance of $500,000.

My intent was to give a more realistic portrait of advances than what seems to be floating around in the world.

But, as you may have noticed, I talked only about the advance. And ( Read more... )

If you've been in the writing community long, you probably frequent writer-centric sites, or you haunt social networks like facebook and twitter. As a wannabe author, I used to  hang out on Verla Kay's Blue Boards. If you write picture books through young adult, the blue boards are wonderful-- cram-packed with information (multiple agents and ( Read more... )

One of my absolute FAVORITE parts of the writing/publishing process is seeing my cover for the first time. There's something about that moment that makes it real. I had a very strong vision for what I thought the PRADA & PREJUDICE cover would look like, but ever since, I've just sort of left it up to my publishers' amazing design teams.

When it ( Read more... )