Nathan Bransford - The Forums

There's no perfect way to know when to file something away because there's always potential there. I think I've got four manuscripts filed away. The first one I thought was pretty good but now looking back on it, not so much. I think the first one's the hardest to know when to put away because you a...

It is fun to read through all of the conspiracy theories, although I did start reading through this thread really hoping that someone had actually read The Casual Vacancy & could tell me what they thought of it (guess I'll have to go to Goodreads for that). I too refuse to pay so much for a book...

Cool!

I was more creating the list to get things straight in my head and for fun than because I needed it, but that's part of why I posted it-to see what all of you would come up with, and to see things like the List of Powers.

Option 1 made me a little confused about what was happening because the first sentence almost sounds like it could be a query for a non-fiction book. I scrunched up my forehead and wondered whether college ever used to be free. Then I kept reading (and then I understood). But I do not think the intr...

This post reminded me I just got a Jeaniene Frost book out of the library. I think I'll go read it now.

I found myself reading over my query letter to get this done (b/c I asked myself, "Uh, what was my book about again?") When twelve-year-old Eric Ortega is stripped of his memories and thrown into a crazy town full of mythological beings, he decides he's not going to let any winged people t...

Ok, so the following are actually comments just to think about because I really like this query. You did a great job re-working this. *********REVISED QUERY IN THIS POST - in black!!********** Dear Agent, Seventeen-year-old Ivy Watson has just met the gorgeous Dane Phillips who's annoying, mysteriou...

Until I started writing I just either loved a book or didn't love a book. I never thought of it in terms of "perfect" or not. But now that I'm writing . . . well, I still don't. What I do, though, is I read a book and become completely envious of an author's ability. For J.K. Rowling it wa...

You guys keep doing this while I'm editing and querying, and it's just cheating to keep track of word counts when editing. Well, maybe in a month or two . . . .

I really just started my Goodreads last week, and I did it more to interact with readers than to push my blog. And my blog is also pretty new, so I can't say I've had terribly many hits to either. I'd say if you have a self-pubbed novel it definitely wouldn't hurt to have a Goodreads account because...

I agree with Sommer about keeping it simple because once you've confused your reader, they (or at least I) just give up on trying to understand. If they're really into the book, they might skim through the confusing part, but once I'm confused, the effort I'll put into that section is minimal. And t...

Fun! I have a weird range of tastes, so here's what I got (I don't have "real" TV, so this is actually my hulu addiction): Castle Bones Warehouse 13 Big Bang Theory (only available on cbs.com, boo) Project Runway America's Next Top Model The Voice Face Off *Eureka WOULD be on this list but...

You guys made awesome suggestions. So now I have two new query letters (I don't know what it is about me & two query letters). Oh, and not sure about the title. The last was a little too not-MG: QUERY THREE: Twelve-year-old Eric Ortega wakes up surrounded by hospital equipment and covered with a...

Oh, dear, the spacing, it is distracting me and driving my brain crazy. I realize that this forum can be a little awkward to use, formatting-wise, but it is definitely things like this that emphasize for me that that I don't want to send anything to an agent that is unappealing to the eye b/c they m...

So, I just started my Official Online Personality in Goodreads. I've actually been using Goodreads for a while to get a few good recommendations, but then I decided to put my profile out there and actually use it as a social media tool, aka, I decided I'd like to meet people on it. So I just spent f...