A Letter from an Agent to an Author Dear Writer, I know you’re feeling really optimistic about your work and excited about the possibility of becoming a published author. I’m excited for you. The passion you bring to your work makes it a real pleasure to work with you and others like you. I hate to sound a negative note, but I feel I must be realistic and warn you that the path to publication i...

A Look At Current Trends In the constantly-changing world of children’s book publishing, it’s often hard to keep up with what’s hot. While strong writing and an author’s passion for the subject will always prevail, here are some areas where editors are currently buying: Poetry is more prevalent than in years past, especially collections from a single author with a theme or hook. Check out Behind...

A Mentor, A Coach or A Therapist: Do You Need All Three? A woman recently asked me “What’s the difference between a coach and a therapist?”  In answering her I realized I had to distinguish between these and a mentor.  If you are ever stuck, it would be wise to think about whether you need a mentor, a coach, or a therapist. A mentor is usually someone who has a lot of knowledge and experience wi...

A Quick Guide to ISBNs for Self-Publishers ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. It is a code assigned to every published book that uniquely identifies it in the marketplace. ISBNs make it easier and more efficient for libraries, booksellers and others in the publishing industry to order, distribute and catalog books. When To Use an ISBN You need to assign an ISBN to any content y...

A Story to Tell: A Quick Guide to Narrative Writing “So what happened?” When someone asks you that, what do you say? You respond by telling a story – when it happened, where it happened, how it happened and why it happened. This is what we call narration. If descriptive writing aims to appeal to your reader’s five senses, narrative writing aims to tell an event that occurred by providing detai...

A Story Writer and Teller Delineates How We Process Information If we look at how people process information, perhaps from an audience member’s perspective there really isn’t all that much difference between a read story and a heard story. (heresy in the storytelling world because we don’t read stories to audiences, we tell them, but perhaps because it’s considered heresy it deserves a closer loo...

A Storyteller’s Voice from India Chris King’s Introduction: Storytellers, story lovers and story listeners live all over the world. You can imagine my delight when I received a message from a storyteller who lives in India. I asked her to write me about her storytelling and about herself. What follows is the portion of an article by Srijaya Char and her short autobiography. Storytelling is ind...

A Writing Space of Your Own When we talk about creating a writing space, we’re really talking about two kinds—a physical space and a mental space. You need both in which to work. Sure it would be great to have a fantastic office with a great view, but if you can’t keep others out of it or get yourself into it, it won’t do you much good. Let’s start then with mental space. You lay claim to it th...

About Writing [This article is re-printed with permission from Michael LaRocca. If you would like to read more of Michael’s articles, please visit: http://www.chinarice.org/articlebank.html] Here’s everything I know about improving your writing, publishing it electronically and in print, and promoting it after the sale. Two questions you should ask: (1) What will it cost me?(2) What does this ...