by Michelle | Oct 20, 2014 | authors, blogging, Michelle's books, rant, reading, respect, reviewing, social media
Some Necessary Context In recent years there have been a number of brouhahas involving book bloggers and amateur (in the sense of not being professional) book reviewers. You can see a post I wrote about three years ago that addresses several of these kerfuffles. Note:...
by Michelle | Jul 13, 2014 | editing, grammar, writing
Really. I’m totally serious here. If you do these five simple things right now, the flow and readability of your manuscript will improve immediately and exponentially. Guaranteed. 1. Excise all that “just,” “so,” “really,” “very,” “well” fluff. Well, for one...
by Michelle | Apr 14, 2014 | agenty stuff, authors, nitty gritty, rant, respect
The other day Shannon Hale (who I adore and who is one of the most giving authors I know) wrote up a post called I Am Not Accessible about how she just doesn’t have time to respond to emails from readers. There are so so so many things I would like to do that I...
by Michelle | Feb 25, 2014 | agenty stuff, authors, bookselling, publishers, publishing, querying, writing
There’s so much more that goes into the decision to represent or acquire a book than simply whether it’s a good story that’s well written. I and probably most others in publishing wish it weren’t, but it’s an inescapable fact that not every book we like or even love...
by Michelle | Feb 18, 2014 | authors, critique groups, editing, my authors, writing
The followed stemmed from a conversation I had with one of my super-amazing authors, Betsy Schow, over pie shakes* during a writers conference last year. Without further ado, I give you Betsy in her infinite wisdom. ***** Allow me to teach you the simple trick of...
