Category Archives: women’s fiction

May 26, 2016   Erin   agents, book ideas, Erin, inspiration, middle grade, queries, suggestions, what we're looking for, women's fiction, YA  
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Some Things I’m Looking for:

While developing my list, I keep having these desires for books I’m not seeing. Although my interests aren’t limited to this list, I wanted to give a few examples of the things I’d like to see:

  • YA/MG where the character is growing up in a foreign country, whether he or she just moved or lived there all his or her life. I’m particular interested in settings where the character lives in a rural village or town. I’d love to know how difficult it is to milk cows or use an outhouse every day of your life while simultaneously trying to understand the ins and outs of a new country.
  • YA/MG fantasy with human characters set in rich worlds not anything like Earth. I’m very fascinated when an author can create an understandable world with its own physical rules and composition. Think Dune and some of the worlds described in His Dark Materials. I grew up reading these books and would love to see more of them on my bookshelf!
  • Mystery novels with atypical detectives. I want characters that by all means should not be a detective, but against all odds they’re actually really great at the job. When I was younger, I loved The Cat Who… series. I thought it was hilarious that the cats did all the work. Whether it’s adult, YA, or MG, I’m all in.
  • Women’s fiction where the conflict lies outside of marriage or kids. I’d love the family unit to be the crutch the wife/mother relies on. Perhaps this is because I’m newly married and want to believe in all the good of it!

If you have a book like any of the above, please query me. You’ll have my full attention.

May 26, 2016   Stacey   bestsellers, children's books, favorites, fun, joy, Stacey, women's fiction  
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Books that spark joy!

As many of you might already know, I’m a bit of the office optimist. I love stories that inspire, delight, and enlighten. I also am a huge fan of Ann Patchett, both her writing and her overall persona. I love that she opened an independent bookstore in Nashville, and I also love that she periodically writes for their blog.

I was pleased to see this post she wrote about books that spark joy. The list describes books she personally finds joy in, and then she gives some suggestions from her staff so there are a lot of good suggestions.

Patchett  got the idea from another employee at the store who had written about books that make you cry. The reason we all read is ultimately for the emotional , spiritual or intellectual response elicited from a writer’s words. Depending on your place in life, the books that have meaning at that time can make a lasting impact.

As a child, Judy Blume did this for me, as well as Torey Hayden’s books about troubled kids. In college, it was fiction like Donna Tartt’s The Secret History that made me want to get into the world of books. I remember walking to campus in Boston reading while I walked because it was so good. This was long before distractions were digital!

When I started working in working in publishing, I worked for Polygram Filmed Entertainment  in development and read Sleepers by Lorenzo Carcaterra overnight after faxing the ENTIRE MANUSCRIPT to LA. Then I found joy and solace in writers like Ann Patchett and Annie Proulx. I loved The Shipping News.

Today it’s more about narrative nonfiction like Brain on Fire and When Breath Becomes Air and psychological commercial women’s fiction from authors like Liane Moriarty and Gillian Flynn. And of course the children’s books I read with my kids. The Harry Potter series is an overall favorite, mostly because my eleven-year-old is obsessed with it, and two out of four are loving Wonder right now. They all loved my client Cecilia Galante’s upcoming touching and heartwarming The World from Up Here.

The idea of books that spark joy, and elicit that positive response that makes us feel good is such a coveted pleasure of reading that I love thinking about it in those terms.

September 17, 2015   Stacey   history, marketing/publicity, Stacey, style, women's fiction  
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Beauty and the book

There is so much talk in publishing about promoting your book. I recently had a conversation with a prospective nonfiction author and when I told him about the proposal process and what he’d need to put together in terms of a marketing and publicity plan, he asked me what the publisher does?! It’s a good point that publishers today look to the author for a lot more than producing a quality commercial book. They are expected to also prove that they can sell it. The publisher certainly has certain resources to support those efforts, but the greater the author’s ability to find their own audience the better the publishing process goes for all involved.

So I was tickled and a little appalled to find this hilarious piece in Time about what was expected of female authors promoting their books in the 1960s, or at least Jeanne Rejaunier, author of The Beauty Trap. The photos are so amazing and my personal favorite is the one of her in bed with her cat and her pencil under her chin making her look like a puppet on a stick. And then there’s the horses…

Let’s get real. A lot has changed (thank goodness) but looks still matter. It’s certainly not mandatory to be beautiful, but it helps! More important is the ability to network with other authors, connect and engage with fans, and produce quality work in a timely manner. Thankfully it is no longer required to take sexy photos in bed to promote your book (unless you’re Holly Madison writing about her time at the Playboy mansion, but even she has taken a less sexy approach to her story and the result is a huge bestseller!). So what works now? What gets you out to the bookstore to buy books? Reviews? Publicity? An author’s book on sale at Costco? Let us know how swayed you are by authors promoting their books.

Jeanne Rejaunier - Author - "The Beauty Trap", with cat

Jeanne Rejaunier – Author – “The Beauty Trap”, with cat

 

May 14, 2015   Stacey   advice, art, authors, bestsellers, creativity, Stacey, women's fiction, writing  
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My love affair with Ann Patchett

I think Ann Patchett is amazing on so many levels. She’s so uniquely talented, is incredibly prolific, and writes nonfiction as well as fiction. I loved her beautiful tribute to Lucy Grealy, Truth & Beauty, as much as her wonderful novels like Bel Canto and State of Wonder.  And I’m a bit biased at the moment because she recently made a large donation to my small town library, which I talked about recently on this blog.

I was pleased to find an article on writing based on her book, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, for brainpickings.org that offers such interesting and lovely advice for writers from one of the masters of her craft. In it she talks about how writing nonfiction for her has been easy, while writing fiction has always been more challenging. She talks about the importance of learning to forgive yourself in creating art, which she feels is critical. She uses metaphors that resonate, even if they initially feel a stretch of the imagination.  Why do writers so often feel they can send early work to The New Yorker when musicians would never think they could play at Carnegie Hall after just a month of practice!

Words of wisdom here from a magnificent and gifted writer who not only writes beautiful books, but is so open to sharing her knowledge and skills with other writers. She’s a true gift. Enjoy!

February 05, 2014   Stacey   advice, agents, finding an agent, pitching agents, Stacey, women's fiction, writing  
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Writerly advice from the trenches

My enterprising client Kristi Belcamino, whose first book comes out in June, has been busy getting ready for her road to publication. One of her recent stops included a piece she did for Writer’s Digest, which I’d love to share with you all.

There is much to take away from Kristi’s article, including advice on the query process that she compares to a road trip with many twists and turns along the way. Her suggestion to not be prepared to stop until you’ve queried at least 100 agents might sound extreme, but she’s got a point about not giving up.

In a clever and entertaining way, she goes on to offer important pieces of insider advice that are widely applicable to anyone looking to develop a writing career. These include 4 key things you’ll need to “pack for your journey”: Perseverance, Work, Teflon-Mentality and Patience. Come to think of it, these 4 points not only apply to writing, but to anything you want to excel at!

Hope you enjoy Kristi’s article, and please share with us if you have other suggestions for the sometimes long, winding road to publication.

August 22, 2013   Stacey   bestsellers, debut fiction, selling, Stacey, women's fiction, YA  
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Cool publishing news

I’m always heartened to hear about books selling and new opportunities for authors. This week we’ve had a couple of stories in the news that speak to both of these things.

First, The Today Show, a longtime supporter of authors, announced a new book club this week that will be a wonderful way for new and old books to be exposed to a large audience. The first pick, Samantha Shannon’s The Bone Season, is written by a 21-year-old debut author! With the great press surrounding the new club, the book is sure to be a bestseller right out of the gate, a rare achievement in this market and especially remarkable for an author so young.

Then I saw this bittersweet piece about a successful word-of-mouth (the old-fashioned way) bestseller by another debut author which is being compared to last summer’s breakout hit Gone Girl. The Silent Wife has been climbing the lists since its release and unfortunately the author is no longer here to enjoy its success. She passed away from cancer in April, just weeks before the book’s release but the fact that a first novel by an unknown author can achieve this level of success is incredibly encouraging. And a piece of advice to you aspiring novelists – use “wife” in the title of your book because there have been a number of bestsellers recently that have done just that (The Paris Wife, The Time Traveler’s Wife and American Wife)!

I enjoy reading stories like this because it gives me renewed enthusiasm for the book business and the ways in which good books can be published well and find a large audience. If you have any positive publishing stories to share, please do. We’d love to hear them.