While I’ve read and continue to read numerous books on the art of editing and writing, I find myself most frequently leaning on an editing tip that was thrown at me way back in high school. Read it out loud.
tips
Three Tips on Writing Strong Queries
By Julie Lawson
Remember that a manuscript is the result of a writer’s blood, sweat, and tears. Unless they’re lucky to be full-time writers, authors are usually people working a nine-to-five job and have to write during their lunch breaks or stay up late into the night writing after their children have gone to bed. They’ve sacrificed their energy, time, and social life to write a book, and if a query is not handled well, they could see it as an attack on them and not as constructive feedback.
Tips and Tricks for Good Interior Design
By Courtnee' Morin
While the interior design of a book may not always be as flashy as cover design, it is just as, if not more important. A book with a good layout and design may not always get noticed, but a book with a bad interior can ruin professionalism and even lose readers. With these tips, sticking to industry standards when necessary, but utilizing creative practice where possible, the interior design of your book can become the backbone needed for its content and cover to shine.
How to Boost Your Query’s Success
By Alyssa Schaffer @alyssalschaffer
In the past, the Ooligan blog has posted some great advice about query letters. For those who have never written a query before, you should go check those out first. However, with those resources available, we wanted to dive deeper into some pitch concepts: framing and in-person pitches. While the latter will primarily be of use to those participating in Write to Publish (or similar writing conferences), framing your book correctly is useful in all cases. Doing it correctly can really give your query letter a leg up on the competition.
Controlled Chaos: Tips for Conducting Interviews
By Rachel Lulich rmlulich
If you’re a blogger, a freelance writer, a journalist, or even a student with Ooligan Press, your chances of needing to interview someone at some point in time are pretty high compared to the general populace. Some people have the foresight to prepare by majoring in journalism or doing an internship. The rest of us […]
On Queries and Proposals: How To Get an Ooligan Editor to Read Your Submission
By Vi La Bianca and Maeko Bradshaw Vi_LaBianca
We’re two months in as the new acquisitions managers/editors, and we’ve been immersed with submissions in our inbox. Unfortunately, most of those queries haven’t fit within our submission guidelines. But every once in a while we open our email to find a query that gets us excited. We decided to sit down and share a […]