Agile Writer Adenike Lucas Publishes “Birthright”!

  Congratulations to our own Adenike (Brandi) Lucas for her publication of “Birthright”!     Lucas let me know back in May and with everything going on, it slipped my attention to send out a notice.   Check it out on Amazon:   https://www.amazon.com/dp/0989522334/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_SjOxFb7K4G49Z   Meet Medallion. The great niece to Mary; a distinguished woman with a vast family fortune. […]

Public Library Shuns Writer

From Publishers’ Weekly: “YA author Julia Watts has been removed from the slate of authors participating in LitUp, a teen literary festival sponsored by the Knox County (Tenn.) Public Library that was inspired by a teen book festival of the same name launched last year in the Kansas City area. Knoxville’s inaugural LitUp festival is scheduled to take place on […]

Good vs. Bad book? Don’t Judge

K.M. Weiland is an excellent resource for writers of all types. Her website Helping Writers Become Authors should be on everyone’s short list of helpful websites. Also, her books on writing are excellent and merge well with Agile Writer theory. But, in a recent site article by Katherine Marsh entitled “Why Do So Many Bad Books Sell on Amazon?” steps […]

Used Bookstores are Swimming in These…

Used books are a good deal. But apparently there are a good deal of these titles: POLITICAL TELL-ALLS NONFICTION TITLES MADE INTO MOVIES: Seabiscuit, Unbroken, Marley and Me, The Blind Side, Black Hawk Down. ’80S AND ’90S PAPERBACK HITS: Mary Higgins Clark, Danielle Steel, Sydney Sheldon, Tom Clancy, Nora Roberts. JAMES PATTERSON CHRISTIAN FICTION GREATEST HITS: The Shack, Left Behind, […]

50 Shades of Submission

Janet Reid writes… I’ve recently had an agent request the first 50 pages of my manuscript after being “intrigued” by my query and first 5 pages. Good news, for sure. Here’s the thing: a MAJOR plot development happens on page 60; a real WOW moment (at least I hope). I didn’t press my luck. I submitted the first 50 as […]

Tor (SciFi Publisher) Embargos Libraries

The announcement last month that Macmillan’s Tor division (perhaps the world’s best-known science fiction publisher) has instituted a four-month embargo on new e-book titles for libraries is an unwelcome development. Tor officials say the change is designed to test whether library lending is affecting retail e-book sales. Librarians, however, see the move as an unwarranted restriction that will needlessly impact […]

More Problems for B&N

From Michael Kozlowski Major publishers have attended meetings with the founder of Barnes and Noble and have voiced their displeasure that the booksellers management team is in a constant state of disarray. They indicated that they have a strong interest in Barnes & Noble running a healthy and stable business, to counteract the clout of Amazon. Barnes and Noble has […]

The Price of Editing…

From BLAKE ATWOOD at The Write Life: For comparison purposes, let’s look at the editing rates and use an average page-per-hour and an average hourly rate. For instance, the EFA lists basic copyediting of 5–10 pages per hour at a cost of $30–$40 per hour, so I’ve assumed 7.5 pages per hour at a cost of $35 per hour. The other […]

North American Comics Market Declined 6.5% in 2017

Combined North American sales of graphic novels and periodical comics declined about 6.5% to $1.015 billion in 2017, according to a joint estimate made by pop culture trade news sites ICv2.com and Comichron. The overall sales decline was due to a 10% drop in the comics shop channel which was somewhat offset by only a 1% decline in sales to […]