Fall, and a great blog about Awaiting the Moon!

Gosh, it is such a beautiful day! Autumn is proving to be lovely, this year, though the colour has just started. But the air is crisp, the sky is blue, and I don’t have to cook dinner today. Good enough reason to celebrate, and I have a bottle of Strawberry Zinfandel.

Oh, and BTW, here’s a great blog entry about my first Awaiting book, Awaiting the Moon!!

http://jacescribbles.blogspot.com/2007/08/awaiting-moon-by-donna-lea-simpson.html

Reflections

It’s Friday, and I’ve spent another week writing and doing promotion, and next week I’ll have a nice tidbit to tell you all, about a website that will be making my September release ‘Awaiting the Fire‘ their pick of the day soon. Yay! Also, I am going to be revamping and extending the deadline for the contest I have listed here for that very reason.

So to wrap up the week, I thought I’d just talk a bit about something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.

Dancing With The Stars Results

Well, this time I was right; Josie Maran went home on Dancing With The Stars, and I really felt sorry for the poor kid. She looked so downhearted, and didn’t even take the opportunity to rag on the judges when Tom Bergeron gave her the chance.

What I thought was tacky – besides Dolly Parton’s outfit – was the way Josie’s dance partner tried to give his votes to Cameron Mathison. You cannot bequest your votes after you’re kicked off! It doesn’t work that way!

Tonight: Survivor… but it clashes with Ugly Betty, and Betty is going to win this smackdown.

Dancing with the Stars – Part 2

So, last night was Men’s Night.

Who took part:

Helio Castroneves – 2-time Indy500 champ; Brazilian.

Wayne Newton – King of Las Vegas and singer of Danke Schoen

Albert Reed – Model? I guess?

Floyd Mayweather – Champion Boxer

Mark Cuban – dotcom billionaire and owner of the Dallas Mavericks.

Cameron Mathison – soap actor?

Who I was most impressed with: Helio Castroneves!!

Woo-Hoo… Dancing with the Stars

The first night was Ladies Night, and, as Kool would say, the feeling was definitely right!

Who took part:

Sabrina Bryan – Cheetah Girl (Disney Pop Girl Group)

Melanie Brown – aka ‘Scary’ Spice… and mother of Eddie Murphy’s child!

Marie Osmond – One of the Osmond clan, and best know for the Donny & Marie Show… ‘Nuff said

Jennie Garth – of ‘90210’ fame.

Josie Maran – Sports Illustrated Model.

Jane Seymour – Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

Who I was most impressed with: Little Sabrina Bryan blew me away!!!

I’m at Romancing the Blog!

Just a quick entry… I wasn’t expecting it, but Romancing the Blog used an ‘Open Blog Night’ I wrote!! yay.

Check them out and read my entry, ‘Trend-Hopping’ or ‘Why I write about wolfy men.”

http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/2007/09/23/trend-hopping/

Fall is here… almost.

I can’t imagine living anywhere that didn’t have four distinct seasons. Winter is lovely, and a period of rest for nature; I get a LOT of writing done in winter. Spring always adds a zip to my step; gardening is exciting and exhausting, the air is fresh, and I make all kind of plans… some of which never come to fruition. Summer is the season of good times and friends, hanging out, parties and swimming and sunshine.

But I think I love autumn best.

What is ‘enough’ when it comes to promotion?

It has been a rather intense couple of weeks for me. With Awaiting the Fire coming out on September 4th, I’ve been doing everything I can – like a good little writer – to promote it and make sure it gets a good start. More and more that is the writer’s duty – promote, promote, promote – when once it was merely to write the book to the best of your ability, correct it, revise it and proof it as needed, and then start thinking of the next one. Once the book was out, you hoped for the best and kept working.

Now, though,

Does a Writer Need an Agent?

Does a writer need an agent?

Absolutely yes.

Or maybe.

Or, quite possibly, no.

There seems to be no real consensus out there about whether a writer needs an agent to break in as a first-time novelist or not. In my opinion that’s because it really depends upon who is asking the question.

So, who does not need an agent? You don’t need an agent if you write poetry. Or at least I don’t think you do. I’m not equipped to talk about that. You don’t need an agent if you intend to go to an e-book or POD (print-on-demand) publisher, but you MUST be aware of contract details, do research on the e-book or POD publisher you’re thinking of signing with, and even contact other authors. Be aware of your rights and be sure of what you’re signing. There are lots of horror stories out there about writers who ended up scr*wed by unscrupulous publishing companies, or those that went under.

You probably don’t need an agent to submit to the larger publishing houses if you’re approaching the imprints that say they take unagented manuscripts, and there are still some of those left. Often when a publisher introduces a new line they open up submissions to unagented writers because they’re looking for something fresh, vibrant new voices. That’s your best bet as an unpublished writer.

Now… who definitely DOES need an agent?

Weekly Wrap-Up

Hello, all! I thought that I would try, on Fridays, to tie up any and/or all news, notes or other things of interest that have happened in my world, or the world of publishing/romance at large.