Hartline Literary Agency

Asking Debbie Macomber —yep, that Debbie Macomber!— for a Book Endorsement … Patti Stockdale

Tue, 07 Jan 2020 12:26:00 GMT

Although an avid reader and library fan from as far back as I remember, I never dreamt about writing a book of my own. My path to publication followed a strange trajectory. I skipped senior English to glide through my last year of high school. I shoved aside college until I turned thirty-five, and I sold my first book about the time others start napping after supper. Then, somehow, I found the courage to ask Debbie Macomber for an endorsement.

When my editor emailed to start working on book endorsements, I cringed. Self-reliant to a fault, I shy away from asking for favors. Especially from busy authors. Especially from people I admire. And especially from someone I barely know. But that’s how this business works.

Did I have the nerve to ask established authors to read my debut? Oh, and say nice things about it too? Maybe.

I stewed, jotted a list, crossed out names, and prayed, seeking guidance and open doors. After comprising my messages, I hit the send button, waited, and second-guessed my efforts. Maybe, just maybe, I should have contacted one additional author, a New York Times bestseller.

Debbie Macomber and I met at a Texas airport after the ACFW Conference in 2018, two months before I received my contract with Smitten Historical Romance. Debbie, the keynote speaker, had inspired me to persevere. I still treasure the wisdom she shared.

At the airport, we waited for our respective planes, sat side-by-side, and hashed over professional football. She cheers for the Seattle Seahawks. I’m a cheese head. While she knitted, I told her how my Grandma had tried to teach me to crochet and then suggested I find a new hobby.

At some point, Debbie asked if I was published. I shook my head and told her not yet . Then she asked what I wrote. Goosebumps! Debbie-world-renowned-author Macomber had broached the subject, not me.

Cue the polished pitch.

Instead, I stumbled through how my maternal grandparents’ love letters had inspired my manuscript set during WWI. With her knitting needle still clutched in her hand, Debbie pressed her fist against her chest and said, “That touches my heart.”

Unless dementia sets in, and there’s a decent chance, I’ll never forget that moment. It was a gift. My prayer for the conference was to make connections in the literary world. God answered it by way of Debbie Macomber, Tina Radcliffe, Sarah Sundin, and a host of other authors I’ve respected from afar.

As I stared at my list of potential endorsement authors, one question wouldn’t leave me alone. Should I ask Debbie to endorse my book? Would she remember me? Did big-time authors help nobodies? Was I crazy to even consider it?

Since I’ve been labeled crazy once or twice (I prefer fun-loving), I asked.

The day a message arrived in my email from Debbie’s assistant, I gaped. Debbie intended to write a blurb. I googled what’s a blurb . Loose definition: it’s a tad shorter than an endorsement. A blurb was perfect.

After I mailed Debbie a note of thanks, she sent me a beautiful congratulations card and a handwritten note. Who does that? Umm … Debbie Macomber.

Time passed, and then another message arrived from Debbie’s assistant. When would Three Little Things be ready for review? Debbie now hoped to write a full endorsement.

I laughed. I cried. I fell to my knees and prayed a prayer of gratitude. I’d handed my book over to God weeks before my publishing deal. Before, I’d called most of the shots. Maybe all of them.

Not anymore.

The whole endorsement thing still intimidates, but I’ve learned a few key lessons.

1. It’s okay to ask for help, even from established authors.

2. Most authors, particularly in the inspirational market, exemplify generosity and goodness. They remember what it felt like to release a debut.

3. God opens doors, not me.

Debbie’s full endorsement follows:

“Three things I loved about this book:

Weekly Agent Newsletter/ The joys, the challenges, and the work of writing

Tue, 20 Nov 2018 15:03:00 GMT

#BOOKMARKETING

From Donna Moritz of SOCIALLY SORTED : TOOL OF THE WEEK – Image Resize

As you probably know by now, website speed is paramount when it comes to getting results on Google. And if your images are too big, it slows down your site. Not to mention all the other places you have to include images, like in emails. So I’m always on the lookout for a great (quick) tool for compressing images without losing quality.

I’ve been using a mix of Photoshop and a tool called Compressor, but I recently found an awesome tool called Image Resize . It’s super easy to use, nice interface, and you get even more compression than with other tools I’ve tested. Which means smaller images. Win!

Seth Goden has a new Marketing book out; This Is Marketing: You Can’t be Seen until You Learn to See . No matter what your product or service, this book will teach you how to reframe how it’s presented to the world, in order to meaningfully connect with the people who want it.

For the #FICTIONWRITER

Have you ever read a story when [GROAN] the character does something that isn’t even possible? Multi published author Zoe McCarthy speaks to that here in her blog .

Or how about that pesky POV (Point of View)? Susanne Hartman talks about head hopping and other POV issues here .

#NONFICTIONWRITER’S including POET’S and #Fictionwriters can enter these writing contests- NOTE: some have a Dec. 31 ^st deadline but there are also a few due in Jan 2019.

We want to wish our readers a Happy Thanksgiving ! May you enjoy celebrating God’s goodness with your loved ones, family, and friends.

Is Lacking High Concept in Fiction a Reason for Rejection? by Diana Flegal

Thu, 25 Oct 2018 12:22:00 GMT

This Writers Digest Blog post written by Jeff Lyons in 2014

Weekly Agent Newsletter: The joys, the challenges, and the work of writing – Five Noteworthy Things from the desk of Diana Flegal

Thu, 27 Sep 2018 15:22:00 GMT

FIVE NOTEWORTHY THINGS

What would happen if you and I took a hiatus from social media? These survivors share their experience and what they learned.

A fiction submission requires a synopsis. This is not the request of a sadistic mind but a request for needed information. Jane Friedman posted a great article on what a fiction synopsis tells an editor and agent.

Here are the top nine Marketing takeaways from BookExpo 2018

Book picks: Austin Kleon’s Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad (Wish I could read it now, but it releases in April).

Karen Swallow Prior’s: On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books on request at my public library

Tweeters I followed this week : Think Christian and Karen Swallow Prior

Thanks for reading. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, forward it to a friend, tweet me some love , or best of all, buy a book!

Taking a Break by Linda S. Glaz

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 10:58:00 GMT

Having taken a break over the summer to play … well, not play exactly, but just to refresh, I’m ready now to dig in and ask some questions:

-How did you spend your summer? Writing or playing?

-Did you take any breaks?

-Did you find time to do something fun?

-Have you allowed time to refresh and renew?

We all like to take the vacay, but most love to get back home. Dig in, start anew, have our own pillows to snuggle into. And for good reason—while play is fun, most of us are wired to have a strong work ethic. If not, we wouldn’t be writers in the first place. After all, it’s not a career for a sloth.

Working is second nature to us. In early days, folks had to work sunup to sundown in order to survive. Without the long hours, there would be no food on the table, no roof over their heads. As writers, we have to establish our career every bit as seriously. If not, it’s a hobby—not a job.

And still, even if we work upwards of sixty hours a week, as many of us do, we must set aside a few hours a week, or a few days in the summer to simply enjoy ourselves.

We spent a few days exploring and researching the castles and lands in Ireland…I see a story on the horizon…

How NOT to Get an Agent Linda S. Glaz

Mon, 04 Jun 2018 12:53:00 GMT

What on earth do agents want? Writers stumble through the motions as they do their best to guess what an agent is looking for. The answers are pretty simple if you know where and how to look. Learn from the mistakes of others: how NOT to get an agent.

First and foremost, don’t allow your work ethic to identify you as an amateur .

Agencies provide needed information

Agents outline their preferences

Making professional contact need not be painful

-approach inappropriately

-bathrooms YOU ARE KIDDING RIGHT? No, and trust me, not a good idea

-by mail if they tell you email only

-stalking, DITTO NOT A GOOD IDEA. WHY WOULD ANYONE THINK IT’S APPROPRIATE?

-GOD TOLD ME, this that and the other ….YEAH……No!

Then what do I do?

Be pleasant, accept no if that’s the answer, and be sure to send a thank you.

Believe it or not, agents WANT you to succeed. They want to be able to say yes.

They are looking for new authors, but being professional and sending EXACTLY what they ask for shows them you will be awesome to work with, and all agents long for a dream client. If they ask for New Time Roman, 12 pt, which is standard, then don’t send something else. Show them your professional side and keep it neat and to the point.

Be respectful of their time. They look at dozens or more proposals every day. Stand out in the crowd by knowing what to do and how to do it.

If you ever have any questions that I can help with, feel free to contact me:

matthewcaldwell78@icloud.com

The Broad Influence of Social Media by Diana Flegal

Wed, 09 May 2018 14:46:00 GMT

Nonfiction writers must build a platform. Blah, blah, blah.

Get face to face with your readers—it is a great way to sell books. Blah, blah, blah.

You are not your best editor. Blah, blah, blah.

Well, someone is finally extolling the power of social media besides me and the publicist’s I recommend to my clients.

Leave Room for Your Characters to Grow! Linda S. Glaz

Mon, 23 Apr 2018 12:40:00 GMT

First the idea. Then, perhaps, a plot summary. Add him and her, them and they, a couple “extras” for good measure, and you’re on your way to telling a story.

I have friends whose tidy whities are always in a snit, bunched, scrunched, or all of the above. They make graphs, charts, mini summaries, maxi summaries, and general all around watch-your-step outlines. Do NOT color outside of those lines!

For me, I’d feel like I was inside of a white, sterile surgical suite. My characters would be so stifled, they couldn’t turn around without my say so.

Can some folks write this way? Absolutely, but for me, it would be wrong this way .

My very first attempt at storytelling taught me that my initial characters were cardboard. Two dimensional beings who did exactly what I told them even when it wasn’t in their best interest. However, one brave soul who wasn’t important enough to be a secondary character, reared up, bared his teeth, and said, “I did it. I’m the villain. Betcha didn’t see that coming, did you?” And he was right, I didn’t. And yet, once he pointed it out, the antag could have been no one else.

He was bound up way too tight, initially. I had pulled his voice out of my head. The problem was, I didn’t listen to what he had to say. Once I did, he became more sinister than even my imagination could have supplied him.

While my seat of the pants isn’t for everyone, for me, it’s the only way. I want my characters to have room to grow, to tell me who they really are, to change and evolve exactly the same way real humans change.

What are TAP and Amazon Rapids?

Thu, 19 Apr 2018 05:19:00 GMT

Have you ever heard of relatively new chat story craze?

TAP

Tap is a mobile phone app that drops you right into a story and you experience the story by reading someone else’s texts. Many of the chat stories fall within genres that are easy to wrap around short snippets of dialogue. Thriller, Suspense, Romance, Comedy, and Horror dominate the app.

Wattpad launched Tap earlier in 2017 and some of the tap stories have already received over 172,000,000 million taps—a tap on the screen to advance dialogue. Tap is an excellent tool for authors to develop new audiences. It can also be used as a testing ground or focus group setting for dialogue sequences for novels still under development.

Tap is growing at a steady pace and it seems to be poised for a longer shelf life because it is owned by a company that knows its demographic. Wattpad continues to make huge growth gains and Tap is poised to grow along with its parent company.

If you are writing to a YA audience, I highly recommend that you invest some time and energy in this app.

AMAZON RAPIDS

Amazon Rapids beat Tap to market when launched in late 2016. Amazon Rapids is similar to Tap in that it has chat stories, but its unique difference is that Rapids targets a much younger audience than Tap.

Rapids targets a 5-12 demographic for its content and providers for the content must be contracted by Amazon. Amazon Rapids also features signature stories based on business relationships with many popular properties such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Niko, and many other Amazon Studios characters and shows.

Amazon is betting on the success of its television children’s programs on Amazon Prime to bring in a new generation of electronic readers for Rapids. In truth, it has the potential to be a brilliant business maneuver. Success and growth of Rapids would seemingly ensure the success of the Amazon Kindle model for years.

The biggest downfall to Rapids is that is a subscription-based model, which can be problematic for parents on a tight budget. But for authors, Amazon Rapids is a paying marketplace and it is worth your time and energy to investigate the possibility of becoming published with Amazon Rapids.

Have you heard of Amazon Rapids and Tap? If so, have you ever read any chat stories?

Platform or Book—Chicken or Egg? by Diana Flegal

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 10:23:00 GMT

The nonfiction writer often asks the question, “Should I focus on building my platform, or find a publishing home for my book that I can sell as I grow my platform?”

This is a great question, but it depends on your topic and audience.

I want to offer a CAUTION here. It is all too easy for a writer to self-publish their first book, but it is not always in their best interest to do so. I am of the persuasion a writer should build their platform first. I will go over the exceptions further on in this blog.

The best way for a nonfiction writer to build their platform is to seek out speaking engagements and to blog on a routine basis . I am assuming if you have a book in mind, it is on a topic you know well and are passionate about.

The many advantages of blogging once a week or twice a month:

I once romanticized the job of making biscuits at McDonalds. Yet when I had to punch in at 4AM every day, heft a HUGE stainless steel kettle, roll out pounds of dough, cut then bake a gazillion biscuits an hour, the romantic notion I had of the job evaporated.

Research all it will take to become a successful nonfiction author.

Face to face, speaking/video/or live chat, is a great way to reach your audience, widen your area of influence, and sell books.
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EXCEPTIONS to the RULE:

Publishing your book BEFORE developing your platform often leads to disappointing sales and provides you a small area of influence. I represent a few nonfiction authors who published their book first. Sadly, after supreme efforts on both our parts, they still have not met the measure of success they are worthy of.

Yet, in every circumstance there are exceptions to the rule .

In our Reality TV-driven world, readers want to connect to the author, especially if they write or speak on a topic near to their own experience. This is the value of social media.
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If you have something of worth and value to share with an audience—share it.

You will then have a waiting audience to launch your book to.