Friday, June 08, 2012

Friday Fun Facts

It's the end of another week of the Great Print Book Giveaway! Later tonight I'll share the names of the 2 people who have won their choice of books from my list. Love sharing the wealth!

Speaking of wealth, in numbers anyway, a total of 788 people entered my week-long Goodreads Giveaway for Summer's Song. Not too bad! I'm thinking of sending follow-up messages to those who entered who specifically list my genre on their reading preferences (I think some people just enter every giveaway, no matter what) - and I may offer a few ebook copies of Summer's Song if people seem interested. I'll also, of course, direct them to my blog and website. Always a good way to get a few more readers and followers! I do have to figure out a time-efficient way to do this, though, since it will involve sending individual messages and even if I only write to half those who entered, well, that's a lot!

In other news, I'm about 13K words through my revision of Tequila Sunrise. Making some major changes but the characters are cooperating so far, which is always a good thing~

Local RWA chapter meeting tomorrow, which I'm looking forward to. Always nice to chat with fellow authors and be inspired anew!

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Writers' Wednesday: Pitch Results & What's Being Requested

The results are in from Romance University's pitch session with Entangled Publishing last week, and I'm thrilled to say that one of their managing editors requested both novellas I pitched, SEX ON THE BEACH & TEQUILA SUNRISE! Very exciting :)

I think about half the pitches received requests from the Entangled editors, which is great news. I scanned the other posts to see which kind of works were requested (and which weren't). In a nutshell here are the results:

~Most commonly requested material: single-title full-length (above 75K) contemporaries, romantic suspense, a couple time travel romances, and a few historicals; category-length (50K-70K) contemporaries; and a few YA romances (Young Adult).

~Some reasons that material wasn't requested: Heroine was a teenager battling Lucifer (tough for her to win...); they had just acquired a story with a rock star heroine and didn't feel they could take another; they had just acquired a military romance series and didn't feel they could take another; pitch didn't follow the guidelines (longer than 3-5 sentences); heroine was sleeping around to try and get pregnant; the story started in the wrong place; too much telling and not enough showing; no editors were looking for a shape-shifter story; didn't want a story with the main character "waking up"; a 20-year age gap between H/H was too much; the person had already pitched the story before; writing "not strong enough."

Hope you find these results interesting - I know I did. If you're an author, definitely keep your eyes out for online pitch sessions. They are great ways to get past the email slush pile and get a fairly quick response to your query and sample pages. I'll mention one: Savvy Authors often has pitch sessions with both agents and editors - there are a few coming up this summer, and here's the link.

Good luck pitching, and keep on writing!

Monday, June 04, 2012

Monday Mentionables: A Great Way to Learn is to Pitch!

OK, time for another week of the Great Print Book Giveaway - remember, all you have to do to win FREE books is comment right here or on my Facebook Fan Page (what book would you like to win? what do you like to read?) or Tweet about the contest. Last week's winners have their books on the way right now!

I pitched my 2 novellas to Entangled Publishing over at Romance University last week. The managing editor will be posting feedback on all 120+ pitches (wowzer!!) as well as making requests too. And I'll tell you a secret: it was sooooo interesting to read over the various pitches and see what people are writing and how powerful some of the first 100 words of a manuscript can be. If you ever have a chance to participate in something like that, do so. Reading over others' work can be a great learning experience for your own writing.

My Goodreads Giveaway of Summer's Song runs through this Thursday and is already up to 330 requests (as of late Sunday night). Have you entered??