Jen's Writing Journey

Welcome to the new home of Jen's Writing Journey, the blog that chronicles Jennifer Roland's writing life and provides useful information for new and seasoned writers.

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Lots of good stuff out there as we look toward the fall.

The Business of Writing

How a Book Gets Published
Agent Nathan Bransford gives a great, easy-to-follow description of how a book goes from finished clean copy on the author’s desk to a shiny new book on the shelves.

Ask Daphne: What about Contest Sites?
Are contests a route to get an agent? Kate Schafer Testerman says, no, not directly. She doesn’t visit contest sites looking for new authors to represent, and she doesn’t imagine that most other agents have time to do that either. I believe contests are still viable ways to gain buzz for your work, and they might be a nice entry in your query letter, though.

Passion and Confidence in Publication, Part 1 of 11
Rebecca Emrich begins a new series on the role of passion and confidence in your writing. Does your writing reflect your passion? Are you following your dream when you write, or are you simply trying a different career path?

What We Agents Talk about when We Are Talking about Auctions
Agent Kristin explains the different types of auctions that may be involved when your agent is selling your work.

Stanza and the Future of Ebooks
Author JA Konrath shares his thoughts on the format wars for digital books. He includes a bit of the history of format wars for music and video, and he concludes with his recommendations for writers who are planning how the shift to ebooks will affect them.

Craft

Dear Diary: A Bit on Journaling
Rebecca Emrich shares a conversation she and a friend had about journaling. Would-be writers have long been advised to keep a journal to build their daily writing habit and increase their skill. Do you journal? How has it helped you hone your craft?

School of Write
Writing can be an expensive undertaking, if you attend every conference, buy every writing book, and complete a master’s program in creative writing. And the expense of all of those options can be overwhelming, especially when your writing has not yet brought any income. But, agent Rachelle Gardner reminds us that learning can come cheap–there are many low-cost writing resources out there, including all of the great writer and agent blogs–and it is essential if we want to earn more money from our writing.

Revision in Action
Writer Jennifer Hubbard uses an excerpt from her own work to show how she revises. She discusses the idea of when you might want to kill a phrase you love to make your story better, which I touched on in my post about prologues on Wednesday.

Fiction

Urban Fantasy: Science Fiction’s Future?
GalleyCat looks at the bright economic prospects of the urban fantasy genre and how it might affect the rest of speculative fiction in the future. Also read the follow-up discussing the difference between urban fantasy and paranormal romance.

Writing F/F(/M) for the Female Gaze
Kristin Saell guests at Victoria Janssen’s blog to discuss how to write sex between two women that will actually appeal to straight women. The advice she offers reminds us of the importance of keeping the reader’s perspective in mind when writing. She also draws on the feminist theory of the male gaze to show why mainstream romance readers haven’t enthusiastically embraced F/F romance. After reading this, think about whether your fiction is based on reality and speaks in the language of your ideal reader.

Don’t have an ideal reader? Here are two posts that will help you understand why you need one and how to create one.

Freelancing

Job Posting: Quartet Press Editorial Positions
Quartet Press, a new romance publisher, is hiring contract content and copy editors.

60 Tips for Getting Started in Your Freelancing Business
Deb Ng shares the lessons she and other freelancers have learned the hard way. Use their combined wisdom to ensure that you start (or continue) your business on the right foot.

Which Freelance Writing Services Should You Promote the Most?
Jennifer Mattern gives tips for choosing which services you should promote on your web site and networking. Hint, you probably want to promote the services that pay your bills so you can afford to spend time doing the one’s you love. Mattern reminds us that we freelancers are first and foremost a business, and a business must be run with a balance between passion and practicality.

Platform

We’re Even Crowdsourcing Bookstore Appearances Now
GalleyCat reports on a contest being held by Melinda Blau. She is asking her Facebook friends to visit their local bookstores, ask strangers to take their pictures with her book Consequential Strangers: The Power of People Who Don’t Seem to Matter…But Really Do, and submit them to her. Other authors have done similar contests. How can you use social media and crowdsourcing to build your platform?

Get Known Before Your Book Deal
Christina Katz shares her platform-building wisdom at the Under 30 CEO blog. Of particular interest is her answer to the question of mistakes made by writers when trying to build their platforms.

Fun Stuff

The Things They Don’t Tell You When You Sign the Contract

Very funny–and accurate–things you need to know about the writer’s life. I have been a victim of the Non-Einstein-ian contraction of the space-time continuum. Where’s Doc Brown when I need him?

Hey, Where’s the Doggies of Publishing Go?

Desperate to share photos of your dog? GalleyCat shares a few opportunities and a fun video about Dean Koontz’ dog.

More Links

Thursday Midday Link Roundup
The ladies at Dear Author post a daily collection of links about the industry that is worth adding to your Google Reader. Be warned, though, that this is an active site, so you’ll see your unread count increase quickly.

Related Posts

• Publicity Writers write; authors market. That is an extreme oversimplification of the publishing industry, but I think it captures one major difference between a write and an author. An author is required to market the heck out of their book(s), unless they are happy to only sell to their family and......
• Writing Roundup, August 21 We've got a lot of interesting news posts this week in addition to the regular blog suspects. The Business of Writing The Limits of Control This article from the American Journalism Review provides a good synopsis of the ethics policies and guidelines major newspapers are asking their reporters to follow......
• Writing Roundup, February 12 Whew. This has been a week of technology troubles for me, but my laptop is on the mend. So, I'm back with some of the great writing posts from around the blogosphere. (It pains me to use such a cliched word, but I don't know of any word to describe......
• Writing Roundup, May 8 And, another work week for the 9-5 crowd comes to a close. I wonder if this song lyric would be true of me if I did not have a day job to do in addition to this crazy writing thing: "I wake up every evening, with a big smile on......
• Writing Roundup, Aug. 14 So many great resources, so little time. Thus, I avoid preamble and move directly into this week's links. The Business of Writing 5 Reasons Pitches Can Be Detrimental Rather Than Helpful Jane Friedman, who took pitches at the Willamette Writers Conference, offers a little advice to writers making pitches: Don't......

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