Special Feature

How to Handle an Elevator Pitch

by Wendy S. Delmater Imagine you’re sharing an elevator with your dream editor, and have the length of the ride to interest them in your book. That’s the scenario behind the idea of an “elevator pitch.” You have to be able to interest the editor in a very brief period of time, to hook them…
Issue Two Hundred Seventy Two Special Feature

How a Kitchen Timer Made Me a Better Writer

By John Dorroh One day in December while administering fall exams to my high school science students, a friend dropped by the school to leave me a gift before she traveled home for the holidays. (That was a different time, when visitors were welcomed into the schools without a pat-down.) The gift was a book…
Issue Two Hundred Seventy One Special Feature

11 Literary Journals that Accept Prose Poetry

– By Stephanie Katz Prose poetry blurs the lines between genres by looking like prose, but sounding like poetry. While there is no set structure for the prose poem, many are written as single paragraph of prose finished by a few lines of poignant verse, and they often make good use of alliteration, assonance, repetition,…
Issue Two Hundred Seventy Special Feature

How to Write a Novel Synopsis

by Wendy S. Delmater There’s been a lot written on the subject of writing a synopsis, and I may suggest doing certain things a little differently, but the experts all agree on one thing: finish the book first. So. Are we done writing the book? Good. Now how do you boil down from 70K to…
Issue Two Hundred Sixty Nine Special Feature

4 Ways to Increase Your Chances of Getting Your Poetry Published

By John Dorroh I wrote my first full-length novel when I was 22 and received at least that many rejections before I put it to bed forever. Last summer, 40 years later, I pulled it out of the bottom of a moldy cardboard box, cleaned it off and read it. My hats off to the…
Issue Two Hundred Sixty Seven Special Feature

Grants Are Your Friend: Building Your Artist Portfolio

By Patrick Parr From the years 2002-2013, I’d published a dozen stories in various genres. The amount of money I’d earned from them turns out to be a whopping 370 dollars. That’s around 30 dollars a year. Now, perhaps you think that should be expected. After all, pay rates and the short story market, particularly…
Issue Two Hundred Sixty Six Special Feature

What Does Being Published for the First Time Mean?

By Ben Graff Holding a copy of your own book, for the first time, is something to savor. The sheen of the cover, the smell of the paper, being able to say I made this. It is both a beginning and an ending of sorts. How do we best evaluate this staging point in the…
Issue Two Hundred Sixty Five Special Feature

When To Query: A Guide to Following Up Submissions

Language can be confusing sometimes, particularly English. A query letter or a cover letter is usually the first thing you send a publisher, introducing yourself. I have written about query letters here. However if you haven’t heard back from a publisher after a particular length of time you are often encouraged to email them a…
Issue Two Hundred Sixty Two Special Feature

How to Find Literary Journals

At Authors Publish, we review a literary journal every week and regularly release new themed calls for submissions and linked literary journal lists. However, if you submit a lot (and you should), you need to find more literary journals on a regular basis. The following sites are great places to find literary journals. This list…
Issue Two Hundred Sixty One Special Feature

Surviving Twitter: A Writer’s Guide

By Nadia Thompson To even the most tech-savvy of writers, the machinations of Twitter can seem like a veritable minefield, but the twitterverse can be a magical place for aspiring authors in particular. I began to realize just how much of the Twitter Kool-Aid the publishing world had drunk when I started researching agents I…
Issue Two Hundred Sixty Special Feature

Tor.com Publishing Open to Novellas till May 15th

Until 15 May 2018 (9 a.m. EST), Tor.com Publishing, the publishing arm of the science fiction and fantasy website Tor.com, will be open for unsolicited novella submissions. Novellas should be between 20,000-40,000 words and can be either in the science fiction or fantasy genres. They specify: “This open period is intended for authors who have…
Issue Two Hundred Fifty Eight Special Feature

How to Politely Sell Your Books to Friends

By Ben Graff Many writers are introverts, most hate selling, and it is not always easy to develop strategies for approaching existing contacts. Yet established networks provide real opportunities to reach potential readers and should not be ignored. Whilst your circle of friends and readers will be different, there is no reason why they cannot…
Issue Two Hundred Fifty Six Special Feature

Why You Need to Follow the Guidelines

Wendy S. Delmater Every market has what are called guidelines, often on a Submissions or Guidelines tab or page. So what are guidelines? Guidelines are a set of rules put together for the benefit of editors, to make their lives easier. They are also for writers, to give them a better chance of getting published….
Issue Two Hundred Fifty Four Special Feature

How to Manage the Tone Of Your Author’s Page

— Lizbeth Meredith Glimpse my social media and you’ll notice my posts mimic those braggadocio holiday newsletters I’ve come to loathe. The newsletters that incessantly boast things like My daughter won the lead in the Christmas play! My son is an Olympic gold medalist! Our family went on three exotic vacations this year, and they…
Issue Two Hundred Fifty One Special Feature

How to Re-Capture the Love of Writing

By Abigail Shepard I don’t believe in writer’s block. I think there’s always something to write, and every writer I know has a huge file or notebook of ideas that haven’t yet seen the light of day. The problem comes from worrying too much about how you’re going to write it, or, sometimes, just not…
Issue Two Hundred Fifty Special Feature

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