Thursday, October 15, 2009

Fancy e-books

Publishing veteran resurfaces with e-book venture

Former HarperCollins honcho Jane Friedman steps into the future, launching Open Road Integrated Media to publish e-books drawn from known and amateur authors.

Super interesting read here.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

A taste of what it feels like to have an agent!

I won Kelly Sonnack's 5-page crit in Cynthia Liu's "Take the Dare" auction and I think it's some of the best money I've ever spent. Not only did a bunch of kids get a bunch of books, but Kelly is sweet. She's also honest and has gone above and beyond the call of duty.

She's not only:

* critiqued my pitch
* answered really detailed questions I have about publishing/writing-related things
* thoroughly reviewed and provided feedback on my first 5 pages
* been supportive throughout this whole process

but she's also offering to:

* read both my 1st person pages and 3rd person pages to tell me which one is better
* have a phone conversation
* read the complete, polished manuscript

*falls over*

She's amazing and I'm so lucky. Not to mention so very scared. I want FRIENDS WITH DEATH to surpass her expectations. I'm so nervous, I'm having a little trouble writing. Which is why I'm reading (recently purchased GOING BOVINE) - to learn and better my craft.

Anyway, that's what I've been working on. I'm also, once again, wrestling with the decision of "should this story be told in 1st person or 3rd" and I'm trying to decide if I want to do NaNoWriMo this year. I have this WIP to finish and polish and my MG fantasy that I want to completely re-write so I don't know if I have the time to meet the 50,000 words in 30 days goal. I'm super tempted, though. How about you? Are you NaNoWriMo-ing?