Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Demons and Angels

Everyone wants to guess the next trend before it happens. But how? I'm wondering if the slush pile can offer some clues. The past month I've seen dozens and dozens of manuscripts about otherworldly love-affairs. No, not vampires. Angels. Will there be a heavenly response to the vampire and werewolf craze? It seems to follow. You've got gorgeous, ephemeral love-interests, Biblical battles between good and evil, forbidden love, and none of the icky blood stuff. When I see a swell of subs on the same topic, I think there must be something in the mass-unconscious that's given everyone the same idea. I wonder...

-JMC

Social Networking for Book Promo

ReadingGroupGuides.com recently conducted a survey of book club members and found that 83% of groups read both hardcovers and paperbacks, and that at least half of book club members are on Goodreads or Facebook.

Probably wise marketing for authors, getting their books up and discussed on these kinds of sites.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

New Age Queries?

Ah ha! This may shed some light on last week's mystery. Thanks to Danielle for pointing this out.

-JC

Monday, June 8, 2009

SCBWI, Query Questions

Scott returns from Jersey today with tales of a fantastic SCBWI conference. Many thanks to all who made it possible, and to the 14 billion (or so) writers who shared their work. What we're hearing: boy middle-grade is still much in demand. So send us those rough-and-tumble stories.

I received a question today about our exclusivity policy. Exclusivity means submitting to us and us alone for a finite period - in our case, thirty days. We ask this because we don't wish to compete with other agencies for your work. If you'd like us to represent you, we get first dibs. Multiple submissions refers to sending more than one piece to different agencies. This is generally discouraged.

As always, I am delighted to answer questions via email (general@scotttreimelny.com).


-JC

Friday, June 5, 2009

Things that make you go "hmm..."

Our contact info must have popped up someplace funny, because we have been DELUGED with queries for adult manuscripts - most of them spiritual self-help books. I've written back to some of the authors, asking where they saw we were interested in that kind of thing, but so far no one has replied. I'd like to find the site and correct the misinformation. Oh well.

-John

Search This Blog