It’s interesting that I read last week about having a contingency clause in a pays-on-publication contract because I signed one of those about six weeks ago without that kind of clause. I suppose I naively assumed the article would be published sooner than this fall.
If there is one key piece of advice my editor, Jane Friedman from Writer’s Digest Books, has for writers with a non-fiction book idea, it’s the importance of narrowing a book’s focus before submitting a query. Seven years ago, I didn’t know that I needed to start the nonfiction book pitching process with a simple, narrowly focused query. I made things much more difficult for myself by trying to write the whole book first and then trying to sell it, lack of focus and all.
Lucky Ali (age 16) is in Florida for a 10-day Spring Break trip. She went with a friend and the friend’s family. They have visited Epcot, Disney World, Universal Studios, Sea World, and a few other places. Ali will probably sleep for a week when she returns. She’s having a fabulous time and, while she says she misses her mommy, I know she’s lying.
I’ve chosen to whine long and loud this week about what happened to me last week. My laptop has had an electrical short for the past few weeks. The plug in the back would jiggle loose and I’d lose power. It also sucked the life out of two batteries. Sure, I had every intention of taking it in. But, as long as I could keep jiggling it back into working mode, I figured I could just put it off. Well, on Friday, it died for good. Luckily, I had backed up all my information the night before…
This week:
Your book has finally made it through the publishing process and you have a copy in hand. In fact, you
When it comes to your writing and how readers will react to it, you never really know what
Gene Papin (https://www.papincraft.biz), a writer and woodworker, sent me an email last week in response to my missive on choking parts in squeaky toys. He said, “One of the things I do is make toys, along with scroll work. With regard to small children, if the toy fits inside the pasteboard roll (inside lining) of a paper towel roll, it will go down a small child’s throat and choke him.”
I occasionally receive orders for books that authors plan to sell at book fairs. Unfortunately, in almost every case, the authors are sorely disappointed in the resulting sales.
This week:
