That's right, I'm hosting a retreat! This year, I wanted something where I could meet new writers, but it was also relaxing, but I could...

If you're reading book deal announcements on Publisher's Marketplace, or researching past sales for literary agents, you might have come...

Hey, we’re creative people, yes? We write stuff. We make up stories about the people in line with us at Starbucks. When inspiration...

Ready to get an agent, grab a book deal, and see your book on the shelves at Barnes & Noble? First, you'll need a query letter. That's...

Congratulations to John Klekamp, who signed with agent Sera Rivers of Speilburg Literary! I first met John when I did an edit for his YA...

Congratulations to Beatrice Bradshaw, who just published her Scottish winter romance, Love in the Scottish Winter Highlands! 1. You got...

This is advice I've heard all over the internet, aimed at querying writers--sometimes even from agents themselves!--and it's so...

Congratulations to author and literary agent Sera Rivers, who just signed with Katie Shea Boutillier of Donald Maass Literary for her YA...

I first met Melissa during KissPitch, which is a writing mentoring contest where writers complete for mentorship from agented or published authors, to help them polish their manuscripts and get ready to query agents. I was chatting with other mentors behind the scenes about their impressions of the mentee pool, and author Emily Colin and I were both crazy about the same entry--a smash-the-patriarchy post-apocalyptic retelling of Tristan and Isolde with sky-high stakes and lot

Big news!!! I'm thrilled to announce my books are now represented by Eva Scalzo of Speilburg Literary Agency. In fact, I am...DOUBLE...

On February 22 at 3pm EST, I've been invited to present a webinar on ReedsyLive about "How to Write Romance that Stands Out." Tickets are...

This retreat was an absolutely fantastic experience! I presented on Mental Health for Writers, facilitated discussions on Finding Hope...

When a reader first finds your book, they have only TWO crucial pieces of information that can hook them: your cover and your title. If it's spine out, narrow that down to just the title. Unfortunately, a good title is hard to find--how do you encapsulate 100,000 words or so in less than five? For all of my books, I either knew the best title instantly...or had to go through dozens of rounds of hard trial and error to find something that works. Fortunately, since working with

A hook is what sells a book. I used to be terrible at creating hooks, at the beginning of my career. I had a tendency to write very immersive, character-driven stories with no high-concept hook to sell them. Eventually, I had to learn to explain hooks to editing clients, and along the way, I developed this method for how to write them myself! First, to make sure we're talking about the same thing, a book-level hook is related to the premise (general idea of the book) but inst

I first met Eagan Daniels during PitchWars 2018. This (now closed) contest was for querying authors who had a polished manuscript and...

Congratulations to William Brashears, who signed with Lori Galvin from Aevitas Creative Management for his crime fiction manuscript,...

Congratulations to Joe Cancelmo, who has just signed with Heliotrope Books to publish his novel, Won’t Forget the Motor City, an upmarket...

Congratulations to Christy Swift, who just signed with Cathie Hedrick-Armstrong of the Purcell Agency for her romantic comedy manuscript...

Suspense techniques aren’t just for the stabby books, my friends! Do you wish you could add suspense to your novel? Want to know how to...