Why Books are Rejected
Books are rejected for two main reasons:
- The editor (or agent) doesn’t connect with the voice.
- The editor doesn’t connect with the character.
In this video, we explain how writers can revise their pitches and query letters to appeal to literary agents and editors. We cover fiction, practical non-fiction, narrative non-fiction, and memoir.
Click here to watch the video.
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Can You Land an Agent or Book Deal at a Writers Conference?
Yes! Look, you can’t call up HarperCollins and say, “Hello! I’ve written a great book, could I please speak to Mr. Harper or Mr. Collins?” If you’re an unknown quantity, and you aren’t sleeping with someone at a literary agency–or even if you are, in some cases–it’s virtually impossible to get face time with a publishing professional, be it an agent, editor, or publisher. Your blind query is usually dropped with a plop into the slop of the dreaded and aptly named slush pile, where it is then skimmed over by an eighteen-year-old unpaid intern. The fate of your book, the object of your passion and hard work, is frightfully beyond your control. Luckily, at the best writers conferences and workshops, and even some of the top-drawer bookfairs and festivals, you can personally meet, speak with, and sometimes even pitch to real publishing professionals. We know. We’ve met amazing writers at all of these places and helped them get book deals.
“I’d already begun the pitch process by mail and email, and it felt like yelling into the void most of the time,” recalls Roxanna Elden, whose experiences looking for an agent to represent her first book are all too typical. “There were agents who took six months to respond to emails, and one who asked me to send a hard copy of the manuscript overnight, then rejected me weeks later with a one-line, all-lowercase email that said something like, ‘love the title but not for me sorry.'”
Nura Maznavi and Ayesha Mattu thought they had won the lottery when they almost immediately landed an agent. Their agent shopped their proposal to a dozen big New York City publishers and one by one they were rejected. “Soon after,” Nura explained, “our agent dumped us because she no longer had faith in the project.”
Roxanna, Nura, and Ayesha knew they needed to get in front of professionals. Roxanna signed up for Miami Writers Institute, an annual conference at Miami Dade College. There, she attended a talk by agent Rita Rosenkranz. “By this time, I had perfected my pitch and built my platform and had some idea of what I hoped to find in an agent. Then, in her talk, Rita mentioned that many agents wrongly ignore books for niche markets, which my first book was. She also said she was looking for authors who showed the willingness to hustle to promote their work. Everything she said made her seem like an incredibly good fit for my work. I walked up to her after the talk, handed her my card, and emailed her as fast as I could. She answered my email within 24 hours… and still does!” Rita went on to sell not only Roxanna’s first book, See Me After Class, but also her children’s picture book, Rudy’s New Human.
Nura and Ayesha took themselves to Litquake, San Francisco’s biggest literary festival. They signed up for an event we do around the country called Pitchapalooza (think American Idol for books), and they won an introduction to an agent or editor who was appropriate for their book, Love InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women. One call later, they had a book deal. “A year later, our book was published and we were on the front page of the New York Times Arts section. And, two years later, we had a follow up book, Salaam, Love: American Muslim Men on Love, Sex & Intimacy!”
But just attending a writers conference, workshop, or book festival is no guarantee of a book deal. How you present yourself (and to whom) matters as much as your idea and your book. You have to pick the right agent or editor. Present yourself as a complete package. Seize every opportunity at just the right moment.
Lana Krumwiede, whose attendance at the James River Writers Conference helped land her first book deal for Just Itzy, advises, “Be as prepared as possible by researching the agents, editors, and authors who will be speaking. You’ll get more out of the conference that way and you’ll feel more confident talking to people. Get out there and talk to people! Ask (appropriate) questions and take in as much as you can. And if you have an appointment with an editor or an agent, don’t fall into the trap of thinking of it as your ‘one big chance.’ There is no such thing as ‘one big chance.’ You will have as many chances as you create for yourself.”
Victoria Skurnick, a literary agent at Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency, has this advice for first-time attendees, “There are ways to an agent’s heart at conferences for writers. The first is–be normal. This is harder for some people than you might have thought. The second, be helpful. The people who provided me with a club soda when they noticed my voice cracking, who offered to pick me up and drive me to a dinner far away–I will be grateful to them for the rest of my life.”
We agree. Here are our top ten tips for scoring at a writers conference, workshop, or bookfair.
The Book Doctors Top 10 Tips for Scoring at a Writers Conference, Workshop or Bookfair
- Look good, smell good, and don’t be late. Pretend you’re a guest on The Today Show–act and dress accordingly.
- Be respectful of publishing professionals. Don’t just blast over and bombard them. Be patient, wait for your opening. Never pitch your book unless they ask you to, and if they do, don’t go longer than a minute. And please, we beg you, don’t follow them into the bathroom! This has happened to us more times than we care to remember.
- Listen more than you talk. Your goal should not be to pitch at all costs. Better to have a good conversation where you get to know an editor or agent.
- Research! Make sure the event caters to the kind of book you’re selling. Make note of who is presenting, and plan your approach for whom you want to meet. Sign up early. The most valuable conferences, classes, and one-on-one sessions fill up fast.
- How do you get to perform at Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. The same is true with pitching books. Workshop your pitch whenever possible. Tell everybody who will listen, honing your delivery so the pitch lasts less than a minute. Try rehearsing with other conference attendees. All this extra effort will have a make-or-break effect on an agent or editor.
- Have an excellent business card and don’t be afraid to use it. Collect as many cards as you can.
- After the event, follow up all leads as quickly as possible. Early birds strike while the iron is hot.
- Network! Meet as many fellow writers as possible. These encounters can blossom into all sorts of relationships. You never know who will be published one day.
- Buy books written by people you want to approach. Ask them to sign the book for you if they are willing. Use this as an informal opportunity to make a connection.
- Connect! Do something nice for booksellers, agents, editors, writers, and publishing professionals using social media. If done actively and appropriately, tweeting, facebooking, instagramming, and blogging are great ways of staying in touch and making yourself a known quantity.
The Book Doctors travel across America to feature in writers workshops, conferences, bookfairs, and festivals. On February 13th, we’re holding a conference and Pitchapalooza at one of the greatest bookstores in the country, Changing Hands. If you are in the Phoenix area, come hang out, polish your skills, and maybe take a selfie with us. But please, don’t follow us into the bathroom.
To read this article on the Huffington Post, click here.
Roxanna Elden has been a teacher for eleven years and is the author of See Me After Class: Advice for Teachers by Teachers. Her inspiration for Rudy’s New Human came from watching her dog, Rudy Elden, as he adjusted to having a new baby human in the house. She lives in Miami, Florida, with Rudy and his (now two!) little humans.
Lana Krumwiede began her writing career by creating stories and poems for publications such as Highlights, High Five, Spider, Babybug, The Friend, and Chicken Soup for the Child’s Soul. Her first novel, Freakling (Candlewick, 2012) was named a finalist for SCBWI’s Crystal Kite Member’s Choice Award and an honor book for the International Reading Association’s Intermediate Fiction Award. Freakling was followed by two more novels, Archon (2013) and True Son (2015). Lana is also the author of the picture book Just Itzy (2015). She lives with her husband and daughter in Richmond, where she sits on the board of directors for James River Writers and runs a local writers’ group.
Ayesha Mattu is a writer, editor and international development consultant who has worked in the field of women’s human rights since 1998. She was selected a ‘Muslim Leader of Tomorrow’ by the UN Alliance of Civilizations & the ASMA Society and has served on the boards of IDEX, the Women’s Funding Network, and World Pulse. Ayesha is an alumna of Voices of Our Nations writers’ workshop and a member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto.
Nura Maznavi is an attorney, writer, and Fulbright Scholar. She has worked with migrant workers in Sri Lanka, on behalf of prisoners in California, and with a national legal advocacy organization leading a program to end racial and religious profiling. She lives in Chicago.
Victoria Skurnick came to Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency after being at The Book-of-the Month Club for almost twenty years. As Editor-in-Chief, she relished the opportunity to devour every kind of book, from the finest literary fiction to Yiddish for Dogs. She also is the co-author (with Cynthia Katz) of seven novels written by “Cynthia Victor.”
Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry are co-founders of The Book Doctors, a company that has helped countless authors get their books published. They are co-authors of The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published: How To Write It, Sell It, and Market It… Successfully (Workman, 2015). They are also book editors, and between them they have authored 25 books, and appeared on National Public Radio, the London Times, and the front cover of the Sunday New York Times Book Review.
Ashish Mukharji: From Pitchapalooza to Publication
We first met Ashish at a Pitchapalooza @ Kepler’s in Menlo Park, South of San Francisco. At that point he just had an idea for a book. Then he attended our Stanford workshop. From the first time he met him, he seemed like such a radiant, intelligent, generous, thoughtful and funny person. He also just read it kind of healthy glow. And he was so enthusiastic about his book. We’ve observed over and over again that the sort of passion is contagious, and the driving force behind almost all the successful authors we know. So now, his book is out. It’s called, Run Barefoot Run Healthy. And here’s a story.
It all started with an aptitude test. After a day of having me play with little metal pins and then write essays about nothing at all, the good people at Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation (JOCRF) gravely informed me that my mathematics degree and subsequent 20 years in technology were completely misdirected, and my (only) high scores in
“ideaphoria” and “vocabulary” directed me to one career and one career only: writing fiction.
At the time, my sole interaction with books was reading them, typically racing over the details to find out what happened at the end. Did he get caught? Did they get married? Who won? The scenery along the way … in one eye, out the other. And at work, conversations tended to revolve around the benefits of “hardware tessellation,” or why our “front-side bus” was better than theirs. Or
maybe we were better because we didn’t have a front-side bus. Whatever. I had no connection to the production end of literature, so while I enjoyed imagining myself as a swashbuckling Hemingway or globe-trotting Pico Iyer, it didn’t seem particularly within reach.
What’s that they say? “Time drags when you’re really, really bored at work.” High ideaphoria people need variety, which is not the defining characteristic of the corporate world. So I suffered. Only two jobs and five years later, I finally said “it’s now or never – I have to try that writing thing.”
I took a few classes at Stanford, culminating in a term with the wonderful Alice LaPlante, learning not only how to critically read a piece and observe the author’s technique, but also that the boom and gloom now in vogue in fiction, was not for me. I do not need to read, much less write, about drug addiction, child abuse and suicide, without which modern literature apparently cannot sell. So fiction was out.
But could I possibly bring my 99%-ile creativity (I do like saying that – forgive me) to bear on a topic of non-fiction? What did I know enough to write about? What did I want to write about?
Like everyone else in California, I am a marathon runner. Not a world-champion marathoner, in fact I rank fifth out of five runners in my apartment building, but a middle-of-the-pack fitness runner, like millions of others. Specifically, I was a middle-of-the-pack runner who had recently found religion in the form of barefoot running, which had banished my 20-year-chronic injuries to the dust piles of my walk-in closet, along with my running shoes. I could not stop talking about my bare feet, and how everyone else should have bare feet too.
15 million Americans run at least twice a week. 437 million more Americans want to run, but don’t because their knees hurt. I made up that second number, but you get the idea. There’s a market. And my friend Jason was already writing a barefoot running book. And I was encouraging him to do it!
Inspiration is a strange thing. I’ve run barefoot for years, I’ve known about my writing destiny (courtesy JOCRF) for years, but I can’t explain why the idea came to me exactly when it did. Once I had the concept, putting my thoughts down onto paper was easy. Organizing them
into coherent structure was harder. Figuring out how to get published, well, that was more complex still.
It has never been easier for an independent, non-rich and non-famous author to go to market and reach a global audience. And the number of plausible publishing options has never been more overwhelming. If you need a path through the chaos, the Book Doctors’ “Essential Guide” is
comprehensive. They lay out all the possibilities, and what each involves, from the nitty-gritty of traditional publishing, through the various assisted options, to doing it all yourself.
The one thing David and Arielle can’t do for you is to know yourself. Authors and businesspeople often inhabit opposite ends of the producer/marketer spectrum, and my sense is that many authors are uncomfortable with self-promotion, or with manipulating a profit and loss spreadsheet. I have a background in business, and I thrive on independence, so I immediately gravitated toward the DIY option. Some call it “self-publishing,” but to me that word is a bit like “atheism” – not a label one uses in polite society.
I decided to start my own publishing company. It really is quite straightforward. A publisher is anyone who owns an ISBN, the identifying number applied to all books. Buy a number and you’re official. All you need is to write the book, hire and then micro-manage an editor, several proofreaders, an illustrator, book designer, indexer, and cover designer, then negotiate photo and other
rights … and you’re in business. You might want to talk to a lawyer. Then there’s the marketing. The process is spelled out in great detail in Aaron Shepard’s _POD For Profit_. My book is a paperback, so I chose to print it with Lightning Source, a division of Ingram,
which automatically secured me distribution through Amazon, BN.com and other retailers.
I’ve compressed time in the telling of my story. Unearthing David and Arielle’s book, and Aaron’s book, took a lot of work. But with them to map the path ahead for me, the rest has been “easy” – no longer confusion or doubt, merely the challenge of efficient execution on a budget. How hard are you willing to work? How much do you love sharing your ideas with others? How willing are you to run a business?
I work past 1am seven days a week, and I’ve never had more fun. And my book is selling, and people are writing in with how it is changing their running, their health, and their lives.
Write. Publish or get published. I recommend it.
The Book Doctors on TV with Pitchapalooza
this is from our epic Pitchapalooza @ Anderson’s just outside of Chicago, in Naperville.
How a Writer Gets Published, Part 1
I’ve been studying the relentlessly ridiculous publishing business for a decade. I wrote a book about it called The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published (product placement). I’ve come to the conclusion that there are four basic principles involved in getting successfully published: 1) Research, 2) Network, 3) Writing, 4) Perseverance.
In the last 10 years I’ve also written 12 books that have been published; everyone from corporate giants like HarperCollins, Random House and Penguin, to incredible independents like Soft Skull, Canongate and Workman. I’ve been on bestseller lists. My books have been translated into a dozen languages. So lots of talented amateur writers I work with just assume that anything I write will automatically get published. But because the publishing business has contracted, and I’ve written books in so many different categories, and I don’t have one agent or publisher I work with time after time, and some of the books I write aren’t for a mainstream audience, I still have to apply all the principles listed above to get my books published.
I have six manuscripts that are burning a hole in the pocket of my computer. A ghost story (The Valley of Love and Delight: A Ghost Story); an experimental novel (Mort Morte); an anthology filled with writing from a severely underrepresented and beat down demographic (Johns, Marx, Tricks and Chickenhawks: Professionals Writing About Their Clients); a young adult novel about asthma (Breathless in Flat Rock); a kid’s picture book (The Boy Who Cried Wolf); a collection of poetry by some of the greatest poets in the world, specifically designed for kids to say out loud (The 100 Greatest Poems for Kids to Say Out Loud); and a collection of shorts. Since I have already applied principle #3, these books have been written. It never ceases to amaze me how many people tell me they want to be writers, but they haven’t actually finished writing a book. There’s a very good chance that several if not all of my manuscripts will have to be rewritten a grotesque number of times. In fact one of them is with an editor even as we speak; someone I’m paying to tell me why my book sucks. I’m going to put my money where my mouth is, and hope my foot doesn’t end up there.
I’m going to get these books published, or have an aneurysm trying. Every week or so, I’m going to introduce one of my manuscripts, and explain the daily steps I’ve taken to accomplish my goal.
The Valley of Love and Delight: A Ghost Story. I’ve been working on this novel for almost four years. I’ve done 42 drafts so far. A dozen of my writer friends have already read the book and told me why they thought it sucked. I’ve already paid two editors to tell me what parts they thought sucked. Once again illustrating the often-neglected notion that you have to keep rewriting and rewriting and rewriting until you get it right. I see so many manuscripts by talented amateurs that are just so obviously not as good as they could be. It’s like inviting someone over to your house for a piece of cake, and serving them something that’s half-baked. All gloopy and goopy and melty and horrible.
#1: Writing. About a month ago an agent I queried expressed interest in representing the book. I got to her because I relentlessly pursued a famous writer she represents, trying to get him to do a Twitter interview with me. After five tweets, he finally consented. When I approached his agent, she was very receptive because I had interviewed her client.
#2: Networking. She and her fabulous assistant had some ideas about how I might make it more suck-free. So I spent a month feverishly rewriting the book. Then I got a 15-year-old reader to read it. It was shocking and slightly horrifying how many times she was able to pinpoint exact moments where the book had a gigantic amount of suckage. A smart teenage reader is worth his/her weight in plutonium.
#4: Persistence. I just got the manuscript back from an amazing editor who the agent recommended. She’s the one I’m currently paying to tell me why my book sucks. Today I got back her notes. They were edifying, horrifying, brilliant and maddening. Even though she said lots of nice things about the book, it’s clear there is much much work yet to be done. I have serious psychological problem because I want everything to be finished NOW. It’s a severe difficulty to overcome when you’re writing a novel. I also suffer from post dramatic stress disorder, so I immediately plunged into the darkest blackness. All I could see in the editor’s notes were everything that was wrong, everything that sucked, all my failings and shortcomings. But I am stepping back from my emotions, using the techniques I’ve developed over these decades to avoid plummeting down into a shame spiral. I’m using this to learn how to be more patient artist. And now I will go back to the grindstone and put my nose to it with some elbow grease. And remind myself how much I love working on this book. Here’s the pitch, which I’ve also been working on for four years:
The Valley of Love & Delight: A Ghost Story
Finn is being haunted by two ghosts. Only one of them is in his head..
Finn Hart is 16. He comes home from a party and finds his mother dead in his bed with a 94 page suicide note by her head. Since his father disappeared almost before conception, Finn is now an orphan. He’s shipped off to boarding school housed in buildings made by the Shakers, a religious sect in the 1800’s. The Shakers are famous for two things. 1) They made exquisite furniture. 2) They didn’t believe in sex. There are no more Shakers. Finn’s first night at school, after everyone’s asleep, he hears a baby whimpering and crying. The crying turns into wailing, and it’s so unbearable Finn feel like he wants to die. But no matter how hard he looks he can’t find a baby. When he wakes up his aristobrat roommate, the baby’s wailing stops. When Finn finally falls asleep, he dreams he’s an orphan being adopted by the Shakers in the same buildings. Only it’s 1850 and the buildings are brand-new.
Finn lives two sleep-deprived lives. One at boarding school where a cool new headmistress creates a culture of abstinence, and he tries to overcome the death of his mother, who haunts him daily. In his dreams Finn tries to live a simple hard-working Shaker life, where sex is the road to burning for eternity in hell with Satan. In both worlds Finn falls madly in love. And gets both girls pregnant.
Finn’s mind deteriorates until he can’t tell the difference between dream and reality, natural and supernatural, now and then. The only things he knows for sure are that he’s madly in love with two girls, neither of whom he’s allowed to so much as kiss. And that it’s somehow up to him to help the baby who wails in his room at night, and trying to kill him in the woods during the day. When Finn gets expelled by the suddenly-not-so-cool Headmisstress, he has to fight for his life in court, with the horrors of Juvenile Detention breathing hot down his neck. And somehow liberate the ghost of the Shaker baby.
This fantasy Young Adult novel centers around the hot button topic of sexual repression and teenage pregnancy combined with a supernatural horror element revolving around one of the most bizarre religious cults in history, the Shakers.
David Henry Sterry is the author of 12 books, the latest of which was featured on the cover of the Sunday New York Times Book Review. “Eye-opening, astonishing, brutally honest and frequently funny… unpretentious and riveting — but also graphic, politically incorrect… and that rare ability to tell the truth.” This is his debut novel.
“Imagine Stephen King writing Catcher in the Rye. It’s that rare beast, a truly literary page turner.”-Tamim Ansary, best-selling author of East of New York, West of Kabul
At 16 I was exiled to a boarding school in the Berkshire Mountains that was housed in buildings built by the Shakers. When I was at boarding school, they remodeled one of the old Shaker buildings. Buried inside the wall they found the skeleton of a baby. A chill froze my soul cold. This is the book I wrote in honor of the Shaker Baby. – David Henry Sterry
Workshop Praise for The Book Doctors
Just a note to tell you that your wonderful seminar on putting your passion into print really paid off for me. I got a contract for a book that will be launched on Labor Day, 2010. It’s called The Custom-Fit Workplace, so you can look for it and know you had a part in it’s genesis. – Nanette Fondas
Thank you for a most informative, entertaining, and altogether fantastic workshop you gave at Stanford yesterday! My husband and I both really enjoyed it and learned a lot from it. I’ll be telling all my writer friends about you. – Cheryl Chow
Thank you so very much for investing your time, energy and passion in the encouragement of others! I am especially inspired by your partnership, which seems like the new model for Great Creative Doings In The World. Thank God for people like you! Also want to say, I have already started reading your book, Essential Guild to Getting Your Book Published, and am thoroughly enjoying it, love “the sound” of your voices and the quality of information shared. – Elizabeth Perlman
I was at your appearance at Mendham Books earlier today and was very inspired by you and your husband. For years I dreamed of being an author and all I ever heard was discouragement, never hope. But you and your husband were able to show me it’s not impossible to get a book published, and, more importantly, where to start. I want to thank you for giving me hope because I pretty much gave up on writing a few months ago due to my lack of guidance. Thank you so much. – Megan Frisch
Thank you for your feedback on my book pitch (Stop Whining, Start Speaking) at the Printers Row Lit Fest last week. It was great to get your feedback — I really enjoyed the experience of pitching. – Marianna (Mare) Swallow
Thank you for sharing your brilliant and passionate words so that aspiring writers like me can feel evermore inspired! – Kara Allen
What an incredible presentation you gave. It was one of those “Aha!” (and even “Gulp”) moments. – Larry Greene
I really enjoyed the workshop today and found everything you and Arielle taught to be productive. I just love your energy and passion in helping writers like us. I would love to organize a workshop/event for you both. Thanks again for the wonderful workshop – Geraldine Solon
Thank you for an awesome class. Not only informative but FUN. I didn’t know I was going to get a comedy show for the price of a class on getting my book published. BONUS!! I love a good bonus. – Sarah Kirby
You guys!! Thank you for that phenomenal all-day session at Stanford a few weeks ago. Can’t thank you enough for providing the most energizing and invigorating forum for getting us all in touch with The Writer Within. –Wendy Abraham
More beneficial than leeches. Stimulating without anesthesia. More useful than bleeding. I have been at work incorporating your ideas from “Putting Your Passion Into Print” and from the seminar at Book Passage. With so much pabulum about writing and publishing in the marketplace, you are catalytic. Just the elixir I needed. Thanks.” –Richard Kennedy
Merci, danke, merci bien, grazie, thank you, many thanks, much obliged,much appreciated, thank you kindly. I am back here in Redding at my computer, newly inspired and enthused, having you and Arielle’s wise, witty and empowering class under my belt.—Susan Terrell
Thanks for the informative and lively seminar at Stanford. You really took us WAY down the learning curve. After I went home, I completely revised my book outline which will lead ultimately, I believe, to a successful pitch.” –Dr. Nanette Fondas
I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the workshop at Stanford yesterday. I had fun and learned a lot; a good combination. –Stephen Bates
I wanted to thank both you VERY much for the fabulous workshop at Miami Dade College! Your workshop was a very uplifting antidote for me rather than antidepressants.”–Ayn Patrick
The workshop with you and Arielle was something that I really needed to hear. The two of you were real, inspiring, and most of all I could tell that you really got through to people. Putting your Passion into Print was definitely needed, and your dedication to helping others overcome their own obstacles could possibly change many people’s lives, by giving them the courage to continue with their dream. Plus, you guys made it look like it was a blast to put together! —Irena Tervo
I really enjoyed Wednesday’s seminar with you and David. It was great to get two perspectives on the publishing process, and to be entertained as well.—Jessica Hilberman, Sunset Magazine
You and David were incredible (he’s hilarious!)…It was totally a dynamic and beautifully presented talk, which I’m sure was very helpful to everyone there. And your book is really really wonderful; I’ll definitely be recommending it to all my clients.–Donna Zerner, author and book doctor
I enjoyed your workshop this afternoon at Collin College in Plano, Texas. Your method of presentation was engaging and informative, upbeat and entertaining. Before I knew it, an entire hour had elapsed! I’m sure everyone in attendance appreciated your expertise; I can’t wait to read your book. Thank you again; you and your presentation have energized me (and encouraged me) to push forward with our project! –Christy Tinsley-Ilfrey
I thought your presentation was wonderful, very well put together. Utterly informative, fun, sincere, and non-threatening, a real invitation to people to enter a world which may seem very foreign and scary to them, the both of you are such a great team. I have to say I’ve sat through a lot of readings and book promos and it was one of the best. Bravo!” –Rose Marcario
I attended your PUTTING YOUR PASSION INTO PRINT workshop at Franklin and Marshall last year. Great event. Very helpful to would-be writers. I am a seasoned workshop attendee, and the program you and David conducted was really first rate.–Gale Martin, Director of Marketing and Communications, Greater Reading Literary Festival
I can’t thank you and David Henry enough for your book and your class ‘Putting your Passion into Print’ which is helping me immensely. You have literally changed my life. —Ana Jones
Thank you so much for the insightful, practical and encouraging seminar on Saturday. You were great. I came away with a new perspective on what it takes to bring a non-fiction book to print. Much more work than I imagined, but knowing I have many of the tools to get started.”—Avril Hodges
Thanks for the way you put your soul into the Stanford workshop today. You and Arielle have a fluid and rhythmic presentation style that radiates your love for each other, while letting your individual expertise shine through. —Dan Montgomery