Last week was the climax of Pitch Wars 2014, the agent round at Brenda Drake’s blog and alternate showcase hosted by Dee Romito. As one of the mentors, I had a glimpse of what these pitching contests look like behind the scenes. It seemed worth sharing these lessons. 1. Brenda Drake is awesome It’s difficult to […]
Articles on Agents and Publishing
Welcome! Here you'll find articles on the traditional route of publishing: querying and landing a literary agent, revising, editing, going on submission, and getting published. These also cover the state of the publishing industry and my guesses about its future.
Lessons from a Debut Author: Caitlin Sinead
Today I’m pleased to interview one of my writing friends, Caitlin Sinead, about her transition from agented writer to published author. Today’s an important milestone in her writing career: the cover reveal for HEARTSICK, her debut novel. Writing the Book Dan: What kind of research did you do while writing this book? Caitlin: I researched quarantines, […]
Pitch Wars: One Mentor’s Feedback
I’ve finished responding to all 74 writers who submitted to me during #PitchWars. It took me a long time to write these responses, but I enjoyed it and I felt I owed it to all of them. Even though I could only pick two for #TeamBioMind, all Pitch Wars submitters should be proud of two things. […]
Lessons and Hard Numbers from PitchWars
Earlier this year, I asked Brenda Drake if she was interested in some technical help for her next pitching contest. Specifically, I told her that PitchWars and PitchMadness might go a lot more smoothly if the submissions were done by form rather than by e-mail. Because you can control a form. You can prevent submitters […]
Pitch Wars #AskMentor Highlights
Today the hopeful applicants of #PitchWars had the chance to ask questions of the 70+ mentors for the contest. We had spectacular participation during both 1-hour chat sessions! At one point I realized I’d fallen 20 minutes and 170 tweets behind on the #AskMentor hashtag (which was trending on Twitter). Talk about exciting! Because it […]
