Call for Submissions from Bloomsbury & BEA links you shouldn't miss!

Head over to DearEditor.com for details about Bloomsbury Publishing's new digital-only imprint, Bloomsbury Spark (and some contest news as well)!

Bloomsbury Spark will publish fiction eBooks for teen, YA, and new adult readers. Its list will feature multiple genres: romance, contemporary, dystopian, paranormal, sci-fi, mystery, thriller, and more. Click HERE for the Bloomsbury Spark website.
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BEA 2013 is here!

BookExpo America is a chance for publishers to show off their upcoming releases and get them in front of booksellers, libraries/school systems, foreign publishers, and members of the media. Here are a must-read links that will have you adding titles to your To-Be-Read list.

CHILDREN'S/YA FICTION BOOKS BY PUBLISHER

EDITORS BUZZ PANEL BOOKS

WHAT IS BEA?

BEA WEBSITE: SHOW & AUTHOR INFO

Why should you be interested in these types of events?

Something that I’m striving to improve is my awareness of what’s going on in this world of writing/reading that I’m so passionate about. Knowing about things like the Bologna Book Fair, the Frankfurt Book Fair, and BookExpo America might not get me a book deal, but these are things that go along with the business of book writing.

In addition to all the great information about writing craft, I’d suggest getting online and looking at both GalleyCat and Publishers Weekly every now and then. You can learn a lot by clicking around those sites!

Remember, writers, that while you shouldn’t write to trends (books already on shelves were typically pitched to editors 1-2 years earlier, so editors have already been inundated by what may seem like a “fresh” idea), it is smart to know what’s selling and what readers are clamoring for. That’s why we’re encouraged to list comparison titles from the last couple of years in query letters. 

Agents want to know that we know the genre that we’re writing and that we’re educated and passionate enough to have read widely in the category we’re pitching, whether it’s children’s/YA/adult/etc.  That’s also why agents use recent comparison titles to get editors excited.

With that in mind, happy reading this summer!