Week in Short - Firebrand closes, Kristin's story, and more

We're going to start this weekly post off with some bad news. Yeah, I'm sorry too. Then we'll get to the good stuff and hopefully you'll be all cheered up before it's over.

Firebrand is closing! That's right, the agency that we all know and love, that created the Query Holiday earlier this year, is closing. This does, however, explain last week's news that three agents had left Firebrand to create their own agency.

In much happier news, MSFV is holding another Secret Agent contest. Genres included this month are romance -- including paranormal and historical, -- urban fantasy, historical fiction, high-concept women's fiction (what is that?), and literary fiction.

Must Read: Here's a wonderful post on what keeps writers from writing. I think I've suffered from all of these at least once. A week. And Kristin's very inspirational journey to agented-ness. I'm going to go read it again once I'm done with this post. I need some kind of motivation to write today.

Bookends has some answers for random questions (including memoirs, thank you notes for personalized rejections, magazine response times, and more), some funny occurrences at BookEnds this week, and tips on obtaining cover blurbs.

GLA has a guide to advances and royalties.

Moonrat has some reasons to get your manuscript in on time.

Nathan Bransford's glossary of publishing terms.

Pimp My Novel's poll results are in and here are the posts on how certain genres are selling. He covered four this week and there'll be four more next week. This week's are: fantasy, children's (PB, MG, YA), mystery/thriller, and science-fiction.

Queryshark critiques an urban fantasy with lots of rhetorical questions at the beginning, women's fiction, and a huge historical fiction. I can't imagine writing anything with 250k... That's like five novels for me.

Rachelle Gardner has a wonderful post on how writing is subjective, and a series on things that don't help your query: part one and part two.

Writer Unboxed on how to treat your publicist. This may also work for your agent, publisher, beta reader... (just kidding)

That's all this week! Everyone have a great weekend and we'll see you on Monday.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Rachael, have I told you recently how sweet you are? :)

I love these fun linky posts, btw! So helpful!
August 15, 2009 at 1:19 AM
Celise said…
Wow, I can't believe Firebrand is closing. When I started the query process the first time around, my top choice had been Firebrand. And specifically Nadia.She talks about a new venture and I'm curious as to what that will be. I wonder if she still has her blog...
August 17, 2009 at 6:54 PM
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