Publishing veteran Scott Pack offers sensible, practical advice on how to create the perfect submission. Based in on his sell-out Guardian Masterclasses, this short guide provides aspiring authors with the tools they need to avoid the classic mistakes made by so many, and to ensure they give their work the best chance possible of being read, considered and published. Covering all aspects of the submission process, including how to identify the best places to submit your work, writing the ideal cover letter, perfecting your pitch, creating an effective synopsis and strategies for submission, this contains everything you need to get your submission right. An extended FAQ section features questions posed by readers and participants in Scott's classes and workshops.

Straight Talk from a Publisher The publishing world has changed! An explosion in printed books, E-books, and self-publishing has contributed to more new titles coming to market than ever before. With so much happening, how does a new author stand out from the crowd? Not to mention turn a profit. In Think Like a Publisher: 33 Essential Tips to Write, Promote, and Sell Your Book, Randy Davila, President of Hampton Roads Publishing & Hierophant Publishing, explains the nuances of the publishing industry in plain English, and gives authors all the tools necessary to be successful in today’s rapidly changing publishing world. Broken down into three easy to follow categories of Editorial, Marketing, and Business specific tips, Think Like a Publisher offers invaluable insight into how publishers think about manuscripts, marketing, and their partnership with the author. You will also learn: What publishers (and readers!) look for in a manuscript The most common new author writing mistakes—and how to avoid them The makings of a great book title and cover The pros and cons of self-publishing vs. traditional publishing How to build your author platform and gain a following The ins and outs of the business side of publishing—contracts, royalties, agents, and more! For any writer who has felt intimidated by the prospect of bringing a book into the world, Think Like a Publisher offers a one-stop guide to understanding the publishing industry and what it takes to make your book a success!

Packed with doodles and cartoons, here is the diary of Loki as he’s trapped on earth as a petulant eleven-year-old—and even worse, annoying thunder god Thor is there, too. After one prank too many, trickster god Loki has been banished to live as a kid on earth. If he can show moral improvement within one month, he can return to Asgard. If he can't? Eternity in a pit of angry snakes. Rude! To keep track of Loki’s progress, king Odin (a bossy poo-poo head) gives him this magical diary in which Loki is forced to confess the truth, even when that truth is as ugly as a naked mole rat. To make matters worse, Loki has to put up with an eleven-year-old Thor tagging along and making him look bad. Loki is not even allowed to use his awesome godly powers! As Loki suffers the misery of school lunch, discovers the magic of internet videos, and keeps watch for frost giant spies, will he finally learn to tell good from bad, trust from tricks, and friends from enemies? Louie Stowell’s witty text and hysterical drawings will keep readers in stitches from start to finish.

How to transform a thesis into a publishable work that can engage audiences beyond the academic committee. When a dissertation crosses my desk, I usually want to grab it by its metaphorical lapels and give it a good shake. “You know something!” I would say if it could hear me. “Now tell it to us in language we can understand!” Since its publication in 2005, From Dissertation to Book has helped thousands of young academic authors get their books beyond the thesis committee and into the hands of interested publishers and general readers. Now revised and updated to reflect the evolution of scholarly publishing, this edition includes a new chapter arguing that the future of academic writing is in the hands of young scholars who must create work that meets the broader expectations of readers rather than the narrow requirements of academic committees. At the heart of From Dissertation to Book is the idea that revising the dissertation is fundamentally a process of shifting its focus from the concerns of a narrow audience—a committee or advisors—to those of a broader scholarly audience that wants writing to be both informative and engaging. William Germano offers clear guidance on how to do this, with advice on such topics as rethinking the table of contents, taming runaway footnotes, shaping chapter length, and confronting the limitations of jargon, alongside helpful timetables for light or heavy revision. Germano draws on his years of experience in both academia and publishing to show writers how to turn a dissertation into a book that an audience will actually enjoy, whether reading on a page or a screen. He also acknowledges that not all dissertations can or even should become books and explores other, often overlooked, options, such as turning them into journal articles or chapters in an edited work. With clear directions, engaging examples, and an eye for the idiosyncrasies of academic writing, he reveals to recent PhDs the secrets of careful and thoughtful revision—a skill that will be truly invaluable as they add “author” to their curriculum vitae.

A heartbreaking and deeply compelling debut, Mrs. Sinclair’s Suitcase is a compulsive page-turner about thwarted love, dashed hopes, and family secrets—book-club fiction at its best. Roberta, a lonely thirty-four-year-old bibliophile, works at The Old and New Bookshop in England. When she finds a letter inside her centenarian grandmother’s battered old suitcase that hints at a dark secret, her understanding of her family’s history is completely upturned. Running alongside Roberta’s narrative is that of her grandmother, Dorothy, as a forty-year-old childless woman desperate for motherhood during the early years of World War II. After a chance encounter with a Polish war pilot, Dorothy believes she’s finally found happiness, but must instead make an unthinkable decision whose consequences forever change the framework of her family. The parallel stories of Roberta and Dorothy unravel over the course of eighty years as they both make their own ways through secrets, lies, sacrifices, and love. Utterly absorbing, Mrs. Sinclair’s Suitcase is a spellbinding tale of two worlds, one shattered by secrets and the other by the truth.

Now updated for 2015! The best, most comprehensive guide for writers is now revised and updated, with new sections on ebooks, self-publishing, crowd-funding through Kickstarter, blogging, increasing visibility via online marketing, micropublishing, the power of social media and author websites, and more—making The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published more vital than ever for anyone who wants to mine that great idea and turn it into a successfully published book. Written by experts with twenty-five books between them as well as many years’ experience as a literary agent (Eckstut) and a book doctor (Sterry), this nuts-and-bolts guide demystifies every step of the publishing process: how to come up with a blockbuster title, create a selling proposal, find the right agent, understand a book contract, and develop marketing and publicity savvy. Includes interviews with hundreds of publishing insiders and authors, including Seth Godin, Neil Gaiman, Amy Bloom, Margaret Atwood, Leonard Lopate, plus agents, editors, and booksellers; sidebars featuring real-life publishing success stories; sample proposals, query letters, and an entirely updated resources and publishers directory.