On Writing and Publishing

    How to Get an Agent By Mary Kole From:ed2020.com/sign-eds-newsletter In magazine and website content creation, the editor-writer relationship is key. You’ve pitched, you’ve broken through—now you’re in a collaboration with the person who decides the content of the magazine or blog. Often, you bring them ideas. Sometimes, they bring ideas to you. That’s not the case with traditional book publishing — at least not at the big five publishing houses (Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster). In fact, you won’t even hear from the editor until they’ve decided whether or not to buy your project. As a former literary agent, I know the ins and outs of the publishing industry firsthand. I’m here to plug you into the traditional book publishing model and break down the task of finding a literary agent to represent you when you’ve never written a book before. Understand the . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Marnie Mueller (Ecuador 1963-65)     Breaking the Rules: When to Ignore Good Advice by Lenore Myka (Romania 1994-96) THE LITERARY LIFE Poets &Writers September/October 2018 • I waved the white flag, surrendering. The novel I had developed a relationship with—had spent time and resources and emotional energy on—had built a fortress around itself, locking me out. It did not want me. But more to the point, I did not want it. We were through. As in any dysfunctional relationship, it had taken me a long time to get to this point. Six years, to be exact. Four different drafts, a total of more than a thousand pages, which did not include the dozens of index cards, the journals and notebooks filled with ideas and research and mind-maps; the hundreds of dollars spent on out-of-print books and DVDs and even a poster featuring a . . .

    Today marks the official launch of “Covering Climate Now”, a project co-sponsored by The Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation. Joined by The Guardian and others partners to be announced, “Covering Climate Now” will bring journalists and news outlets together to dramatically improve how the media as a whole covers the climate crisis and its solutions. The following is an abridged version of the conference keynote speech by iconic TV newsman Bill Moyers, as prepared for delivery.  • What if we covered the climate crisis like we did the start of the second world war? by Bill Moyers Wed 22 May 2019 11.10 EDT   I have been asked to bring this gathering to a close by summing up how we can do better at covering the possible “collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world,” to quote the noted environmentalist David Attenborough, speaking . . .

Preview Weekend  Get Your All-Access Pass and See What Members Love About AWP  You know that an AWP membership comes with a discounted conference registration and a subscription to The Writer’s Chronicle, but there is so much more. And it is yours to explore for three days, free of charge, from July 20–22, 2018. Here are some of the resources you will find upon logging in: Over 1,300 online articles on writing and teaching in our Features Archive Our Writer’s Calendar, with an up-to-date listing of events and publishing opportunities The AWP Job List, which provides the latest information on open jobs for writers Over 100 Career Advicearticles AWP’s Career Services Web Series, including our Writer to Agent Web Serieswith agents from Folio Literary Management We are offering three days of FREE access to see what an AWP membership is all about. Simply email awp@awpwriter.org with your first and last name or sign up below, and we will set . . .

A recent article in Poets & Writers points out that since 2012 sales of audiobooks have posted double-digit gains every years, including a whopping 34 percent boost in 2016. That year publishers sold nearly ninety million audiobooks, more than double the number they sold five years earlier. Thanks to the proliferation of smartphones and the ease of downloading titles online, revenue from the audiobooks at Simon & Schuster, for example, jumped nearly 40 percent last year. According to Audio Publishers Association, an industry trade group, publishers have sold nearly ninety million audiobooks, more than double the number they sold five years earlier. However, audiobooks sales account for less than 4 percent of the  roughly 2.7 billion books sold in all formats each year, but with overall books sales essentially flat and the once booming e-book sector declining, writers have new reason to pay close attention to the increasingly valuable audio . . .

They are known infamously as “gate keepers.” The men and women who throughout the long history of publishing make the decision on whether a book gets published. These mysterious editors who control the fate of every would-be writer hide away mostly in New York skyscrapers and decide what is worthy of publication. Or at least that is what most would-be novelists think. Perhaps the most famous editor of all book editors was Maxwell Perkins. Perkins published F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe. They were his first famous writers but he would go onto publish a wide range of novelists, from J.P. Marquand to Erskine Caldwell to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, as well as, late in his editorial career, convince James Jones not to pen an autobiographical novel but write instead From Here to Eternity. You might ask: how did these editors become ‘gate keepers’? Well, they start in the . . .

Peace Corps Writers MFA Program: Now open for PCVs and RPCVs Do you want to earn your Master’s Degree in Creative Writing while serving in the Peace Corps? Or do it today as an RPCV and not have to step onto a college campus? Would you like to write a memoir or book about your Peace Corps experience? Here is your chance to do both! I have arranged with National University in California to offer an online only Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree program for Peace Corps writers. This MFA is sponsored by the National Peace Corps Association (NPCA). PCVs & RPCVs will receive a tuition discount. The tuition for the MFA is in the area of 20K. National University is the second-largest private, nonprofit institution of higher education in California and the 12th largest in the United States. It is one of the very few universities that offer a . . .

Are you inspired by your Peace Corps service? Do you have an affinity for writing? Looking to write a memoir or book about your Peace Corps experience? John Coyne (RPCV Ethiopia 1962-64), editor of Peace Corps Worldwide, has arranged with National University in California to offer an online MFA program in non-fiction, fiction and poetry writing for PCV and RPCV writers. Courses are currently under development and will be taught by published Peace Corps authors and National University faculty members. Coyne will teach the introductory class and serve as an adviser to Peace Corps students. The inaugural program is slated to begin in Fall 2016 – will be accepting a class of 15 exceptional students. The MFA is flexible program. Students can complete the degree in between one to two years, taking a single one or two-month class at a time. As the course is online, students have the opportunity to progress at their own pace. This also allows . . .

CAREER ADVICE Be a Literary Agent John Coyne profiles six literary agents and offers suggestions for that career path for the Association of Writers & Writers Programs Website. April 2016 I called a novelist friend (Mary-Ann Tirone Smith Cameroon 1965-67) and asked her if she knew of any MFA graduates who were employed as literary agents and she replied, “MFA graduates are writers, not agents.” She was categorically right, but she wasn’t totally correct. Just as there are book and magazine editors who also write fiction, nonfiction, or poems, there are also literary agents with BAs in English and/or MFAs in writing. Some later change horses and become agents, putting their own literary knowledge into play when advising their clients. Others continue to write but work as agents for the sake of having a steadier income while finishing their next novel or waiting for the last one to be made . . .