Category: Books

Read, Eat, Drink–Weekend Roundup

by Maria

Read:
Feeling stuck in your work? Get the inspiration flowing again with this quick read,  which is about my personal sandwich hero, Ari Weinzweig of Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Not only is he an absolute god with a muffuletta sandwich, but he jumped into building a business with only his good sense and solid values about him. (Too many people check those two things at the door when they enter business.) He decided he didn’t want to be the biggest business, or the most profitable business—he just wanted to be the greatest.

zingermans-reuben
Source.

At a certain point, anyone in a creative endeavor, including business, has to decide what kind of company/writer/artist/boss/blogger they’re going to be. Creatives can be especially prone to endless comparison, to always wondering what the other guy is doing. Which leads to doing things like the other guy does them. And we all know that conformity is anathema to creativity (and to happiness, which we can’t pretend doesn’t matter at the end of the day).

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When is the right time to build a platform?

by Maria

when to start marketing a book

Now. Always, always now.

I was at a writer’s conference this weekend full of fabulous, motivated writers who were eager to crack the code of publishing. They had spent months, sometimes years, on their manuscripts, and they had worked extremely hard to polish those manuscripts and proposals to a perfect shine.

But, on occasion, I also heard a familiar refrain, one I hear often in the hundreds of query letters I receive a week: “My website is in the works…” “I plan to launch social media accounts …” “I will create a site to promote…”

The truth is, “I will…” has very little weight with publishers, agents, retailers, or any other gatekeeper. “I have…” is what we want to hear. “I have…” means you’re committed; you’re all in; you’re creating a community of customers now, before you even have a product.

 

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The $50 Home Makeover out this week!

by Maria

This week was the official release of a book I’m so proud to have worked on—The $50 Home Makeover by Shaunna West!

The $50 Home Makeover

It’s a GORGEOUS book, all thanks to Shaunna’s stunning photography. She really has a talent for capturing bright light and pops of colors. She’s also an incredible businesswoman, who’s built her Perfectly Imperfect brand through her blog, online store, and her physical store in Alabama. If you’re not sure how to turn your creative passion into a career and eventually get a book deal, follow her!

She also had a lovely book launch party at her store (read about it here), which made me wish I could jet off to Alabama to buy pretty things in her shop and celebrate this fantastic book.

I acquired and edited this book when I was still an editor, and it’s exciting to finally see it in stores. There are a ton of projects I mentally earmarked to try when I was reviewing the page proofs.

I would love to try her idea for customizing affordable Ikea curtains, especially since we’ll need curtains when we move into our new apartment in September. All you do is buy plain curtains from Ikea and then fancy them up with a swash of gold paint. They look so elegant and timeless—like you spent big bucks on them!

The book also has a great tutorial for painting builder grade cabinets and making them look chic and expensive. And there’s an equally fantastic project for adding a pretty frame to a builder grade mirror, so that it has more personality.


BookLaunchPartyInvitationsPhoto by Shaunna West.

This is the perfect book if you’re feeling very stuck in your home and don’t have the budget or the time to take on big renovations. It’s amazing what a coat of paint and a few bucks can do if you have just the right inspiration.

Go pick up a copy of it, curl up on the couch, and start taking in all the pretty! You’ll be surprised how inspired and excited you’ll be to make your current home your dream home.

Read, Eat, Drink–Fourth of July Edition

by Maria

A weekly round-up of books, news, thoughts, recipes, and miscellany for the weekend.

Read:
It’s just about time for some good fiction summer reads! I read almost entirely nonfiction, since it’s what I specialize in as an agent, but every once in a while I get a hankering to jump into a novel. And that hankering has now hit hard. The problem is, I’m completely hopeless about deciding on just one book when there are so, so many fantastic summer reads I hear about through industry folks. I just can’t do it.

Right now, I’m leaning toward picking up The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty, because it’s guaranteed to be a knock-out (and it has one of the most striking covers I’ve seen in awhile). But what’s everyone else reading? Recommendations wanted!

Liane Moriarty

 

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