Purple Hearts

In our ongoing quest of sharing new resources with you all, here are our findings for this week:

As many of us start to gear up for the RWA National Conference this summer, this post by Adina Kahn of Dystel and Goderich Literary Management on the DO’S AND DON’TS OF PITCHING offers great and practical advice for your pitch appointments. For more information, click HERE.

Jason Boog from The Publishing Spot has a great post this week on HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR WRITING. Think you’ve won the game when you get THE CALL? In many ways, the game is just beginning. For more insight, click HERE.

At Flogging the Quill, there is a SHOW VERSUS TELL CLINIC taking place. To join in the discussion or to submit your own questions, click HERE.

We know that a bunch of our readers write romantic suspense, so the blog, The Graveyard Shift, is one we definitely wanted to share. With blog categories such as evidence, police procedures, and prisons and jails, there are more resources and more information on this blog than we can summarize here, but as one example check out one of this week’s from guest blogger Defense Attorney, Jessa Lutz, entitled, THEY’RE NOT ALL MONSTERS.

And so as not to end on a ‘No Country For Old Men’ note, we wanted to share this fun resource as reported on the Writer Unboxed blog, called, OBSERVATIONS ON DECK, a book and card deck that offers inspiration in lots of ways. To get the scoop on this great writer’s gift, click HERE.

We hope you found as interesting a mix of helpful resources listed as we did. As always, please share any other posts you found helpful from the week in today’s comments section. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Have a great weekend!

It was a lean week in terms of time for research, but we still came up with a few posts we’d like to share with you this Friday.

The week started with an exciting announcement about a new line: Belle Bridge Books, posted by Deb Dixon. The blog post states:

“What we are looking for is writers with unique voices who create strong fantasy, dark fantasy and urban fantasy stories with compelling characters–male or female.

We’re looking at some young adult. Very excited about that. If you’re interested in querying, head on over to the website: http://www.bellbridgebooks.com/“

If you’ve got a suitable project, we hope you’ll give them a query and we wish you luck!

Junta42, a content marketing and custom publishing blog, posted its NEW TOP 42 BLOGS LIST. The list includes a variety of content marketing blog sites, ranging from online marketing, new media, viral content, and blogging — all things we envision could help a writer in some way. Check out this wealth of information HERE.

Lynn Viehl of the Paperback Writer shared a clever post this week in which she makes STORY VOWS, or the TEN PROMISES [she's] MADE TO [her] WIP. While all 10 resonate with us, we want to give a special highlight to vow #4: “I will give you the best I’ve got, not whatever’s left over after the rest of the world is through beating the hell out of me for the day.”

Every so often we need some tough love to help kickstart the writing, and our friend Barb at the Moody Muses had a lot of love to share this week. Check out her TOUGH LOVE POST FOR A DEAR FRIEND in which she asks, How bad do you want it? Barb, we love you for your tough love and friendship!

And since we Purple Hearts have a lot of interest in YA books and the writing of such, we thought we’d close out the week by sharing this next blog — not because it has anything to do with books or publishing, but because it’s a great glimpse into the life of a teen fashionista. We loved her post this week on CHANGE YOUR SHOES, CHANGE YOUR DAY. We [purple] heart her!

So that’s it for now. As always, please share your suggestions in the comments section of today’s post. And don’t forget — at the end of the day today, we’ll choose one lucky winner to receive a copy of Nancy Haddock’s debut novel, La Vida Vampire. To be eligible for the drawing, post a comment to Nancy’s Honorary Heartlette guest post by the end of the day today.

Have a great writing weekend!

Just a reminder that we will be giving away a copy of Nancy Haddock’s debut book, LA VIDA VAMPIRE, at the end of the week.  Please visit Nancy’s guest blog on The Long and Winding Road and post a comment to be eligible.  A lucky winner will be chosen at random on Friday afternoon.

. . . Another Friday and another chance for us to share some great writing and publishing resources from around the blog-o-sphere.

Jonathan Lyons does a rundown on being a writer and getting paid.  It’s more than just shouting, “Show me the money!” at your agent.  For his post on GETTING PAID, click HERE. 

And to continue on a similar strain, Chip MacGregor from Writer Interrupted had a great post this week on GOING FROM PART-TIME TO FULL-TIME WRITING.  To read how, click HERE.

LitMatch featured a post this week that talks about the SASE and the upcoming postage hike.  To find this post on POSTAGE CHANGE COMING - FUTURE-PROOF YOUR QUERIES “FOREVER”, click HERE.

Michael S. Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, (a predominantly Christian book publisher), had a great post this week on CHOOSING WHICH BOOKS TO PUBLISH.  The information is helpful for anyone looking to break into the ranks of the published, whether you write Christian books or otherwise.  To read his take on the topic, click HERE.

A number of the blogs we looked at this week called for a review of goals at this point in the year, so we thought a post on motivation would be a helpful one to share.  We loved this post from Pick the Brain on MOTIVATION DOESN’T NEED TO BE SEXY; OR HOW TO STAY MOTIVATED UNTIL THE END.  To read HOW, click HERE.

In case you hadn’t heard, Janet Reid from Fine Print Literary has a blog where she dissects queries.  If you want to submit to ‘the shark,’ you can find the link HERE for her blog, Query Shark.

Are shapeshifters the new vampires?  You be the judge — click HERE to check out this new group blog.

And one last note — Brenda Novak has kicked off her fourth annual online auction for diabetes research.  After raising $250,000 last year, this year’s goal is to raise $300,000!  Click HERE to see the list of amazing items up for bid and to, of course, participate!

So . . . that’s the list for today.  As always, please share your favorite posts from cyberland in the comments section — we would love to learn about the resources you’ve found helpful!  Have a great weekend, and keep writing!

Way back in August, Marley Gibson joined us as our Honorary Heartlette.  At the time, we knew that her first two books would be making their way into the world, and we are thrilled to report that they both have been released TODAY!

The books, Zeta or Omega? and The New Sisters are written under the pen name Kate Harmon.

These are the two launch books of a much anticipated new series and we wish Marley the best of success with them!

Coming out of conference mode, we thought the following blog references would be timely - colleagues and contests and queries, oh my!

We have talked about poisonous playmates on our blog in the past, but Kathleen Bolton does a great job in her post this week on Writer Unboxed. Click HERE for her take when you encounter these kinds of colleagues. We love how she talks about her appointments with her muse.

Here’s a great contest for young writers being run by Jonathan Friesen, author of the upcoming book, Jerk, California. If you are under twenty years of age and you have written an original short story about a character who discovers, through a personal journey, who he/she truly is, click HERE for more details.

We thought it would be a good opportunity this Friday to share a new agent’s new blog — a new agent in the sense that Diana Fox, formerly of Writers House, has now launched her own agency, Fox Literary. Stay tuned to her new blog for more info from her.

Rachelle Gardner, a literary agent with WordServe Literary, has a great post this week on Ask the Agent: Queries on Queries. She gives some great answers to some probing query questions, so click HERE if you want to take a look.

And find out What Nathan Said (WNS) when writers tell him they can write a compelling novel but can’t write a query letter. Find his insight HERE.

So . . . that’s all for now. As always, we would love to get your suggestions for other helpful blog posts from the week. Please post them in the comments section. Have a great weekend and keep writing!

Friday has quickly become the favorite day of the week around here - and not obviously because the weekend has nearly arrived.  No . . . it is our chance to share with you some of the blog posts  we found helpful in this week’s book and publishing blogs.  Here they are, in no particular order: 

The NY Times blog gives us the Seven Deadly Words of Book Reviewing showing us that not only writer’s overuse and misuse words, but the people who critique them do as well.  To view those Seven Deadly Words, click HERE.

On Agent in the Middle, Lori Perkins talks about published authors and the continued struggle for agent representation and publication, proving that life doesn’t become Easy Street after that first contract and what to do about it. For a post on PUBLISHED WRITERS WHO CAN’T GET AGENTS, click HERE.

How did they do it? Churchill, Gandhi, Beethoven — all of them accomplished amazing things with the same hours in the day as everyone else. Look at some hints to mirror their successes. For example, Author Tom Robbins schedules only 3 hours of writing at his desk per day. I walked away thinking, I can do that. For the 10 WAYS HISTORY’S FINEST KEPT THEIR FOCUS AT WORK, click on this post at the Life Dev blog HERE.

Time Management is a big topic for us at the Purple Hearts, so this next post really hit home. Jason Boog speaks with writer Jeff Gordinier about sneaking in places and times to write when the family, the house, the job and life in general can get in the way.  For advice on HOW TO WRITE A BOOK WITH A DAY JOB AND A FAMILY, click HERE.

Often we all have the tendency to stay within our comfort zones, and our life with software is no different.  Lifehacker helps you get to the next step of using Microsoft Windows. For advice on how to work in FULL SCREEN MODE, click HERE.

As bloggers begin selling their free work in book form, here’s one agent’s humorous look at the blog-to-book idea. Click HERE for Jenny Rappaport’s take from her blog, Lit Soup. 

Our last recommendation for the week is something we try to practice here at the Purple Hearts.  Life at times gets in the way, but it doesn’t have to disrupt your blogging schedule if you have a blog emergency plan.  To find out what we mean by that, click HERE to see if you are PREPARED FOR A BLOGGING EMERGENCY.

And there you have it. Another week of what we’ve found to be helpful from around the blog-o-sphere.  If you have any others you would like to share, please post them to our comments section.  We would love to see what resources helped get you through your writing week.

Until next time . . .  

We spent the week scouring the web for some different and helpful resources to share, and here’s what we found to be new in publishing and book blogs this week:   

Over this past month here at the Purple Hearts, we have talked about writer burnout, motivation, writing in multiple genres and keeping it fresh . . . and a post this week from Mai Thao of the Title Magic blog encapsulates all of those things when she writes about her “MID-LIFE” WRITING CRISIS. What’s especially motivating about this post is that she went from taking a break from writing to making it into the American Title IV contest (as well as being a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award). Go Mai! To read her post, click HERE.

As an unpublished writer we face so many unknowns. When will The Call ever come? Will I ever get paid for this? Kristin Nelson from the Nelson Literary Agency has a helpful post this week on PAYMENT SCHEDULES. To read her insight on this important matter, click HERE.

We reference a number of agent blogs in our weekly what’s new post, and Jonathan Lyons from Lyons Literary LLC had a post this week that pointed out the grains of salt we can all take when it comes to the variety of opinions shared by agent bloggers. For his post, click HERE.

We have often talked about compiling a glossary of all the publishing terms that a newbie confronts when first walking into a writer’s group or chapter meeting and the Guide to Literary Agents Editor’s Blog posted a series called WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? LITERARY DEFINITIONS. To read Volume 4 of the series (posted this week), click HERE.

Our last two references for the week relate to one another in that they talk about sending materials to an agent via email.

The first, from the swivet, gives HELPFUL SUGGESTIONS FOR SUBMITTING A PARTIAL VIA EMAIL. Read it HERE.

And finally, WHAT NATHAN SAID. To find WNS about FORMALITY IN QUERY LETTERS, click HERE.

And there you have it! If you have your own go-to posts for the week, we would love for you to share them by posting to the comments section.

Happy Friday, everyone!

We have another groups of posts from around the blog-o-sphere that we would like to share with you this week, so here are some of our favorites (in no particular order):   

Jungle Red Writers is a group blog comprised of five mystery authors: Jan Brogan, Hallie Ephron, Rosemary Harris, Roberta Isleib, and Hank Phillippi Ryan.  When we saw their post on Writing Hangovers, we felt it was closely kindred to our entries this week on burnout.  We appreciated hearing that other writers (especially these talented and accomplished ladies) experience little blips on their productivity screens too! 

 Hey, There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room is a blog for Mystery Publishing, From Idea to Bookshelf. Every Sunday, Pocket editor Abby Zidle shares an editor’s perspective and this week’s post on Why Your Editor Wants You to Have An Agent was a timely one for us as we start to rev up for pitches and queries. 

One of our favorite blog sights offered two posts this week that not only featured great advice for bloggers, but timeless advice for writers in any medium as well.  The first Pro Blogger entry we want to share is Supercharge Your Content With Voice  . . . which, as writers, we know is what helps make us as unique as our fingerprints.  

And since authors experience those ups and downs that call upon having a thick skin, we thought we’d also throw in this post from Pro Blogger on How to Deal with Blog Hecklers.   

We started the Purple Hearts blog to help foster a community of writers, so it seems fitting to share this post from Magical Musings on What I Learned From Other Writers.  We loved how the references were to authors past and present. 

We hope you all have a great weekend, and want to end today’s post by sharing this motivational entry – Try Not, Do Or Do Not, There Is No Try – from entrepreneur and life strategist, Dominic Siano. (The title of the post is a line of dialogue attributed to Yoda!) 

Before the day is out, please stop in at Barbara Vey’s Beyond
Her Book blog at Publishers Weekly. Today is Barbara’s one year blogging aniversary and she is planning an online party to include lots of giveaways.

She would like to take the message to the PW bigwigs that a place is needed and wanted to talk about all kinds of books in general and romance specifically. To make the message strong, let’s help her blow them away with numbers! Please go to Barbara’s blog today, Friday, March 14. Read and/or post a comment to the blog so we can help Barbara hit record numbers and send a strong message to PW! Plus, who knows what you might win in the giveaway!
Click HERE to join in the fun.

C’mon back next Friday when we’ll again post the entries we’ve found and would like to share from the week’s publishing and book blogs.  

Have a great writing week!