Nathan Bransford - The Forums

A guest poster on my blog [url=http://www.ink_spells.blogspots.com]Ink Spells[/url] posed this question, and it's sparking an interesting conversation. I know a lot of editors and agents, as well as published and aspiring authors, frequent Nathan's forums, and I would love to hear their take on it a...

I've been to this one before. You'll have a great time. So many creative people in the same space together, it's awesome. But bring a sweater. It's FREEZING in those dang conference rooms. Ah! Thanks for the reminder! I always forget the refrigerate the heck out of those conferences during the summ...

<does the Maassketeer salute>,

LOL!! Ok, yeah, I'm going to have to check out the Handbook as well. :)

If you're a Riordan fan, especially a Percy fan, he has a new series coming out in the fall (The Lost Heroes- another Olympians series that peripherally involves Percy). My kids are already psyched for it!

Not only Percy Jackson, but Rick Riordan's new book The Red Pyramid - awesome!! I have lots of lists (with reading levels and some content guidelines) for advanced readers ages 8-12 on my blog Ink Spells . In particular, check out the Suggested Middle Grade Reads , or the listings by genre. :) Keepi...

This is a great thread, and a fascinating topic that I've been thinking a lot about lately. I agree with the comments that social networking serves many purposes, not primarily to sell your book. In fact, not at all to sell your book, not really. What you are doing in social networking is building c...

As an avowed lover of boy-lit, I can attest to the appeal of fast paced adventures like Percy Jackson (and now The Red Pyramid series!). But I think we have to be careful about putting boys in a box, and saying "you'll only like this kind of book, so that's all I'm feeding you." Boys need ...

I'm also attending SCBWI LA - my first big conference! I attended the regional IL SCBWI conference last fall, and that was great. I'm taking the YA Voice workshop and the MG workshop - anyone in those?

This is a fascinating discussion! Just before reading Nathan's post and stumbling over here, I read this post about absentee parents in MG.

@rlouisscott Not sure if this will help, but here's a review of some e-readers.

@Nathan Did you see this fab article from The Mixed Up files blog about The One Laptop per Child project to bring affordable ($75!) e-readers to kids worldwide? Awesome.

KateK - I hope you're right, since I'm writing a YA with telepathy. :)

Science Fiction!!! YES! I am so very pleased to see others noticing this as an emerging trend (blogger friend Beth Revis just got a 3 book deal for YA SF - yay, Beth!). Not only do I WANT it to be an emerging trend (and in MG too, btw), but I think it is actually happening. AND then there's Steampun...

Donna - I can't help with the search function, but is this post by Natalie Whipple perhaps what you're thinking of? In any event, it's a great post on how to know when your writing is "Good Enough."

I was curious to see the answer to this, because I recently submitted a short story where they stated a preference for "manuscript format" and gave an example that used underlining not italics . I figured I would comply because I only had to switch a short story, but I'm glad to hear that ...

Nathan - Thanks for your responses. In spite of all my talk about e-books and e-publishing, I will definitely be seeking out an agent for my MG book (sadly not you, but maybe for my YA book, when it's ready). I negotiated my own contract with the e-publisher and it was a fantastic tutorial on how an...