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I had the same problem so I nudged via a PM here on the board and got an answer back in relatively short order. I also queried him a second time, never heard back, but never nudged. I think my email addy (which is a yahoo.com account) gets caught by his spam filter.

I'm sure there are some who've completely side-stepped traditional publishers in favor of ePublishing, especially those who knew their niche would best be served through an eBook. As for success, that's a very personal term. If you mean financially successful, publishing at an ePress will not...

I concentrated solely on my first novel until I decided it more resembled a plate of spaghetti than a novel. But it taught me a lot about writing, including my process for writing. Since then, I mostly work on multiple projects at a time. I prefer to let a project sit for a month or two...

You definitely do not want to switch POV in the middle of dialogue like that. Try getting the thoughts of the character conveyed through the language used in the dialogue or through the thoughts of the other character. You could try something like: "Stu... Stuff you," Fred spattered. Fred...

Why did you let Jeff (Richard Coyle) leave Coupling? There it was going along as one of the funniest shows ever and then BOOM, Jeff leaves and it goes to pot in the fourth season then the entire series ends. I know, this is no doubt old news, but it was quite a shocker for my wife and I who...

I can't recall any writing teachers treating readers as stupid, but they may very well assume a certain amount of ignorance on writing -- and rightfully so. I know there are a lot of books out there that I find difficult to read now because I've focused more on writing compared to when I didn't...

I was just going to bring up the Magic's Price series. Good books.

Personally, I think everyone's got a good brain surgery in them.

Just my opinion, but I wouldn't think that the average person puts enough thought into blurbs to consider whether or not the source was reliable or impartial. They simply read the words, and if those words are attached to a name that is familiar to them, all the better.

Subsidy publishing is a scammy way of saying vanity press.

Any publisher who asks for money from an author is a vanity press, self-publishing press, and/or a scam. Real authors pay the author, not the other way around. The "risk" a publisher takes is limited by only taking on books they think will sell.

From what I understand, many stores won't even special order books from Publish America because of poor quality and lack of returnability.

AgentQuery is a good place to look for agents: AgentQuery :: Find the Agent Who Will Find You a Publisher I believe they try to keep scam-agents out of the listing. Also, researching agents by checking the bewares forum at Absolute Write is a good idea: Bewares and Background Check -...

I actually put in something like 'novel manuscript formatting' into google and picked three documents at random. None of them were from well-known places (i.e. no major publishers or agencies weighing in just stuff like blog posts). All of them said to use underlines for italics. So I'm...

If you just want to print a few copies, you can use Lulu's wizard to create a cover. It's pretty generic, but it'll have the title of the book on it. If you want to use Lulu for commercial purposes, I'd go with a real cover though.

Curious on one point: Do agents/editors still want the manuscript to use underlines for italics? I've been doing that for years based on some formatting tips I read long ago. I think it was originally so that the typesetter would know that it was italics.

A good agent is one who helps your writing with suggestions, guides your career by choosing the right editors/publishers for you, and protects you by negotiating the contracts. An agent that just sends out the manuscript to all the publishers (except in cases that John noted where the...

Lulu is free. If you just want to get a few copies in hand (to sell or otherwise), it's probably your best choice. If you want to print out a few thousand, maybe not.

Here's something I'm curious about: We've covered how the industry frowns upon authors writing in multiple genres. How about Fiction and Non-Fiction? In many ways, writing fiction and writing non-fiction -- especially the technical side of non-fiction -- are very different things. And I'm...

Exactly. I see a lot of sites (agents/publishers) that request only "completed" manuscripts. I substitute in the word "polished". I will send in a polished manuscript, but that doesn't mean I won't keep polishing ;)