New Contest

Moonrat, the curator of the Editorial Ass Blog, is celebrating.

Check out these contest details--they are quite easy. I'm entered and all I did was post this on my blog!


From Editorial Ass.

Ed Ass got its 500,000th hit today. This makes me feel old and venerable.

Naturally, I wanted to celebrate. I mean, with you guys, since you made it happen. But how?! No one has yet invented a giant internet pie.

Jamie Harrington, clever thing, had the idea that I have a giveaway contest, the prize being a first 20 pages crit. So that's what it is! I'll give away one crit of a book's first 20 pages (size 12 font, double spaced, .5 margins for you sneaky sneakies out there).

You'll be automatically entered to win if you do any or all of the following things:

1) repost this on your blog

OR

2) retweet my Twitter announcement

OR

3) link to this post on Facebook (make sure you include @Moonrat in the post so I'm notified of it)

I'll close the contest at 11 pm EST tomorrow (March 31). The Rally Monkey will randomly select one winner without my input (as if I could make him listen to me, anyway).


See, easy to enter...

Anon,

Nancy

Obviously!

I was at work a few days ago and I fielded a call from a lady (and I use that term very loosely). One of her family members had written a book and this lady was sure there was nothing like it on the market. Her plan was to drop off the manuscript to a publisher so that they could read it and of course publish it. It was an interesting call.

Her: “The world needs this book!” She became a bit nasty when I told her that she could NOT drop off a manuscript to a publisher—that she would need to put together a book proposal and submit it to an editor or agent and if they liked it, they would request to read the manuscript. “So it’s come to that, you can’t just drop off a manuscript?”

Me: “Just like you wouldn’t show up at a potential employer ready to get to work- you would send a resume first and they would call you for an interview. That book proposal is the book’s resume.”

Her: “That’s just ridiculous. What about an agent- I’ll just hire an agent. What agents can I send the manuscript to."

Me: “You need to submit a book proposal to agents as well.”

Her: “That’s crazy. Then I'll send it to a publisher. What publishers can I send it to?”

Me: “Ma’am, off hand I don’t have that information. Not all publishers accept un-agented and unsolicited submissions.”

Her: “You’re not helping me at all. Why do you work there if you can’t give me advice?”

Me: “Ma’am, you can purchase xxxxx book and research which publishers are best suited for the manuscript your family member has written.

Her: “Why the h@ll would I want to do that. I’m calling that guy at the bookstore. He said you could help me and well obviously you can’t."

Me: "Obviously!"

So how was your week?

-Anon,

Nancy

While I was away...

I had time to surf the internet. I found a couple of cool sites I thought I would share.

The first site is a blog by Kathleen Ortiz, an agent with Lowenstein Associates. She has some great contests, it's definitely worth checking out. The Neverending Page turner

The next site is the website for Mem Fox. Check out her 20 tips for writing Picture Books.

Finally, check out this great interview with Agent Holly Root over at the Mother.Write blog.

Anon,

Nancy

Movin'

The moving part of moving is complete but I’m still working on the settling in part.

Here are a few statistics on the move:

Number of vehicles used to move: 5

Number of trips from apartment to condo: 17

Number of boxes used: 40

Number of boxes of books: 28

Number of times cats ran under bed terrified: 10

Number of times cats ran under the bed terrified of a ceiling fan: 4 and counting…

Number of pieces of furniture heaved into dumpster: 7

Number of days my new sofa has been in the condo and not been used as a scratching post: 10 and counting...