The Publishing Pulse: June 28, 2013

Now that it’s summer, the publishing industry has sllloooowwwwed down. This means a number of agents are closed to queries. Before you send any out, make sure to double check the agents’ websites, blogs, tweets to see if they’re currently accepting queries. And if they are, be prepared for a long wait.

Around the Web

This week a self-published author was ousted on a blog after it was discovered she copied paragraphs from two bestselling New Adult novels (Easy by Tammara Weber and Beautiful Disaster by Jamie Mcquire), and pretended they were original material. Her original material. She tweaked a word here and there, but it was obvious the excerpts came from those two novels. The writer could be facing legal ramifications. Stay tuned for more information. In the meantime, if you feel the temptation to steal from the work of others: DON’T.

Along with plagiarizing, piracy is another form of thief that authors have to deal with. Here are some suggestions on how to avoid it.

Agent Rachelle Gardner has some creative suggestions for pitching your project at a conference. Notice she doesn’t say anything about cornering your dream agent in the bathroom. That’s because it is a big mistake to do so as it leaves the wrong impression. As does stalking the agent during the conference.

If you’ve always wanted to participate in NaNoMoWri during November but the timing wasn’t right, next week is your chance to join thousands of writers with Camp NaNoMoWri. It’s not too late to sign up, and the word count is more flexible that the 50,000 words in November.

And finally, here are ten things you do not want in your novel and how to deconstruct the editorial letter.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Stina Lindenblatt @StinaLL writes Young Adult and New Adult novels. In her spare time, she’s a photographer, a blogging addict, and can be found hanging out on her blog (when she isn’t writing).  She is represented by Marisa Corvisiero, and finds it weird talking about herself in third person.