Publishing

A Tale of Two Launches

Tuesday, August 14, 2018
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I had two launch parties for Girlish—one in my hometown of Rochester, NY, and one in my current town, Cleveland. Old Hometown Launch Venue: Writers and Books (a writing center) Food: Beautiful appetizer and dessert trays, which remained largely uneaten. Two kinds of wine + bottled water, most of which remained largely undrank. Agenda: chatting, signing, and general milling about. I did a 10-minute reading from Girlish. Takeways: People don’t care…

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Interview with Book Publicist Andrea Kiliany Thatcher 

For Industry Insiders week, I wanted to introduce you to Andrea Kiliany Thatcher of Smith Publicity, whom I worked with in the months leading up to the release of my memoir,  Girlish: Growing Up in a Lesbian Home.   Andrea Kiliany Thatcher is a Marketing Manager and a Book Publicist at Smith Publicity. Andrea has a long relationship with the independent bookselling community having been a bookseller and social media manager for…

Tuesday, June 26, 2018
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Navigating Failure is Easier Than Navigating Success

Tuesday, June 12, 2018
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Trigger warning: depression, anxiety.   People who have experienced trauma may associate the excitement of success with the same physiological reactions as trauma. They avoid subjecting themselves to excitement-inducing circumstances, which causes them to be almost phobic about success.  Psychology Today  This week’s topic (navigating failure) isn’t hard or scary for me, because I’ve chosen failure for so much of my life. Navigating failure is historically pretty comfortable for me….

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Self Promotion—Awkward Yet Necessary

Tuesday, May 1, 2018
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I love talking about my book. I love posting on social media about my book. Having my book come into the world is one of the most exciting things that has ever happened to me. What I don’t love is feeling as if I’m a show-off, or begging my friends for help. Every time I post about my book, I’m secretly ducking the negative anti-promotion vibes I’m sure are headed…

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Writing Programs, MFAs, and What to do if You Can’t Afford Any of Them

Tuesday, April 24, 2018
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When I started writing in a serious, dedicated way, I had 95 undergrad credits and three active student loans. I didn’t have a bachelor’s degree or an MFA and had never been to a writers’ workshop,  but I believed in my stories. As a gift, my parents paid for me to take a week-long writing workshop at the Chautauqua Institution, and more importantly, volunteered to babysit my boys (one of…

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Querying and Authors.Me

Tuesday, January 30, 2018
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  First of all, when I was shopping Girlish, I went with the “wallpaper the internet with queries” technique. I queried editors and agents and entered emerging writers’ contests—I tried to put my manuscript in front of as many people as humanly possible. One agent I really liked only took submissions through something called authors.me, so I checked it out. Authors.me is basically a dating service for agents, editors, and…

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Writing Books and Chasing Dreams—But First, Survive the Diaper Years

Tuesday, October 24, 2017
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I sat in my very first writer’s workshop the week after I left my soon-to-be-ex-husband.  I was going to chase my dreams, damn it, along with raising two boys in diapers and finding a job and a place to live.  The presenter said something along the lines of, “you can’t write a memoir before you are forty,” or maybe it was, “no one wants to publish a memoir by someone…

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Agents Schmagents

Some people have agents. I am not one of them. It’s not that I don’t like agents, or appreciate their worth, it’s just that I got an offer for Girlish directly from Skyhorse Publishing. You see, I went with the “Wallpaper the Internet with Queries” technique when I was ready to place my book with a publisher. I started on Memorial Day weekend, 2016, and by September, I had an…

Tuesday, September 26, 2017
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What Makes a Literary Agent Tick?

Monday, March 6, 2017
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This week the Debs are sharing stories about their agents, editors and or publishers. Note, this is a repost of a blog post I wrote on Sep. 26, but fit perfectly for this week’s Deb topic. A few months ago, I wrote a big long article on the Grub Street blog on how long it took me to find an agent and how I eventually connected with the amazing Amaryah Orenstein at…

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Fear is the Mother of Foresight, or OMG I’m Going to Be Published!

Monday, October 24, 2016
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This week, in prep for Halloween, the Debs are writing about their biggest fears about publishing.  The quote in the headline comes from Thomas Hardy in his “A Laodicean.” I found it apt for this post. Why? Because I’m a worry-wart. I probably should have added that to my confessions post,. I over-think nearly most every situation, prepping myself for what might come. I recently learned that the term for…

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