The Grand Canyon Association Seeking Book Proposal

The Grand Canyon Association is currently looking for book proposals related to the Grand Canyon from authors. Please e-mail Tod at tberger@grandcanyon.org for book proposal submission guidelines.

First Novel Contest

The McLaughlin-Esstman-Stearns First Novel Prize
http://www.writer.org/page.aspx?pid=927

All first novels published in 2010 are eligible, including those published by major, independent, and self-publishing presses. As far as I can tell, there is no fee to enter.

Only American authors publishing in English are eligible.

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Researching Literary Agent’s Track Record

Googling “Literary Agent” brings up 3,060,000 entries, to give you an idea of how intimidating all of this can be to a writer wanting to get published.

Not that there are as many agents, but there are enough to confound the best of us. To make matters worse, there are scammers out there ready to help gullible writers part with their money.

Remember – you *never* pay an agent up front – not reading fees, not any other fees.You pay when the agent sells your book. The industry standard is 15% of your earnings (20% in case of foreign sales). See the “Literary Agent” section for a sample contract.

The agent doesn’t have to be a scammer to be bad. Plain incompetence on the part of your agent can easily destroy your career. So how do you begin to research the agent?

Click here for a great article on researching track records of agents by Victoria Strauss.

In addition to the sources Victoria lists, I’ve found the forums on Absolute Write invaluable. Just googling the literary agent often brings up a thread on Absolute Write.

Contest for Fiction and Non-fiction

Narrative Magazine is looking for short stories, short shorts, essays, memoirs, photo essays, graphic stories, one-act plays, all forms of literary nonfiction.

Does have a fee $20.00, but the prize money is pretty substantial.

First Prize is $3,250, Second Prize is $1,500, Third Prize is $750, and ten finalists will receive $100 each. All entries will be considered for publication.

Deadline July 31, 2011.

Click here  for details.

Making Money Off Self-Publishing

A lot of people are making a lot of money from self-publishing. But it is important that you plan things out.  Click here for an account by a self-published author (this is pre-Amazon), who still made a lot of money.

How To Make A Living as a Writer: Free Webinar

American Writers & Artists, Inc. is offering a free webinar. Click here for details.

$20,000 Literature Prize for Australian Writers

If you’ve published a book between 1 July 2010 and 30 June 2011, you may submit your work (fiction/non-fiction) to The CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature. The prize is a whopping Aus $20,000!

Click here  for details.

Reputable Literary Agents

A terrific compilation of reputable literary agents:

http://lisa-laura.blogspot.com/2009/12/happy-agent-day.html

http://everyonewhosanyone.com

 

How to Save Kindle Direct Publishing

A few ideas in PC World on what Amazon might do to save Kindle Direct Publishing (KPD) from spammers.

Click here  for details.

Spam Arrives on Kindle

It was too good an opportunity for scammers to ignore. Taking advantage of Kindle’s upload by anyone policy, scammers have been ripping off lesser known authors. All it takes a name change and a cover change. Price it at $.99 and you’re set to go.

Then there are the spammers. They upload junk content. To a casual buyer, it is only $.99 right? They’ve made their money.

Kindle pays authors monthly, so it is quick turn around for the scammers as well as spammers.

Check out the article ‘Spammers, Content Farming, and Kindle: One Reason Why Your Book Can’t Be Found In The Abyss’ for another angle on this. Click here for this post.