Category: Publishing

What to Read and Eat This Week: 25 Podcasts for Readers, Plus What to Do With Those Thanksgiving Leftovers

by Maria

best book news and publishing news

Read:

Engaging Audiences Through Twitter in Just 15 Minutes a Day (Kirsten Oliphant at JaneFriedman.com): Kirsten writes about platform-building and the creative journey at Create If Writing, but here she is on one of my favorite sites, Jane Friedman’s blog, sharing tips for how writers and bloggers can get more out of Twitter in just 15 minutes a day. Kirsten and I will be chatting on her podcast in the next few weeks about publishing and platform-building, so keep an eye out for that interview!

Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch on the Future of Publishing: How an Invention From the 1400s Will Fare in the Years Ahead (Michael Pietsch, The Wall Street Journal): “Ever-larger retailers and wholesalers bring significant margin pressure, which will lead to continued conglomeration. Social media will continue to expand the writer’s ability to connect with readers; publishers will deepen their relationships with writers, but they’ll also create content of their own. As runaway books sell ever-larger numbers, publishers will earn more on their biggest sellers—which will keep driving up the advances they pay for potential hits. At the same time, publishers will need to innovate and challenge assumptions about every aspect of the business.”

Read More

How to get a literary agent–4 things that impress an agent

by Maria

How to get a literary agent–a literary agent shares the 4 things that most impress agents and publishers. Learn how to get a literary agent directly from a literary agent!

I started out in publishing as an editor at a book publisher. And about once a week, I would get rejected. Our acquisitions meetings were on Thursday afternoon, and I’d spend much of that morning preparing a pitch for why everyone should get excited about the book I was excited about.

The meetings would go something like this:

Me: !!!!

Everyone Else: …..

Me: !!!!!!!

Everyone Else: ????

Me: !!!!?

Everyone Else: No.

how to get a literary agent

Doesn’t it suck to have your excitement be met with apathy? I know it’s something writers struggle with every day, and it’s a thing agents and editors have to battle through, too.

But after some comically sad flops, I finally figured out what I needed to say so that the publishing executives would pay attention to the books I wanted to acquire. And now that I’m a literary agent, I’ve realized that the same key elements make me excited about representing an author. So when aspiring authors ask about how to get a literary agent, here’s what I tell them:

Read More

2 Steps to Grow a More Engaged Audience (Free Printable!)

by Maria

how to make blog readers engaged

I’ve been thinking a lot about food stories lately. They’ve been on my mind for a lot of reasons: Thanksgiving is coming up and I’m hosting for the first time; we celebrated my Yayo’s legacy of paella at the Paella for the World Festival a few weeks ago; I’ve been reading Heritage and binge-watching Mind of a Chef.

All those reasons plus, well, you know, working on cookbook proposals. But even all the proposals I’ve been working on lately that aren’t food-related have made me think about stories.

Stories are the magic behind books. It doesn’t matter if it’s a romance or a diet book—stories are what bring it to life and make it worth reading.

Yet stories are often the most difficult thing to coax out of authors, especially in the nonfiction world I work in. I’m convinced that it’s because storytelling is beaten out of us in school. We’re told to avoid “I,” and that what we have to say isn’t interesting enough, and that writing is just about  the accurate conveyance of information.

Read More

How Recipe Writing is Changing, and How It’s Influencing Our Cooking

by Maria

how to write a recipe

Jarrett and I made a pumpkin pie on Sunday night, even though I have all the finesse of a muppet when it comes to baking. We have pumpkin puree on the ceiling to prove it and everything.

I was nervous about making this recipe, because I could not, for the life of me, figure out how we were supposed to time it so that the filling would be freshly pureed and still warm at the exact moment that the crust would emerge from the oven, also still warm. I don’t blame the recipe—I blame myself.

Just kidding. I totally blame the recipe. I’m not going to say what cookbook it was, because I’ll end up with a pitchfork-wielding mob at my front door. But honestly, it shouldn’t take mental acrobatics and five re-readings to figure out how to time the prep and cooking of different components. This is exactly why I hate baking—every little step or misstep makes me paranoid that we’re headed straight for Doomsville. And even worse, so many recipe writers wipe their hands clean of sad sacks like me, who can’t unravel the mysteries of how to soften butter in the microwave without melting it. (I’ve decided I’m going to commission an entire book on this. Who wants a copy!?)

If you like to cook (and even if you don’t), you’ve probably read dozens of recipes in your lifetime. Hand-scrawled recipes, Googled recipes, carefully copyedited cookbook recipes, no-recipe recipes, lost-and-found recipes, recipes that don’t make any sense but that you’re going to try anyway, so help you god.

So, how should recipes be written? Is there a style guide? An editor-and-agent preferred format? A strict sequence of ingredient-listing and step-taking?

Read More