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Friday, June 17, 2011

JK Rowling's Harry Potter Announcement and Mid-month Agent Tweets!

ALERT FOR HARRY POTTER FANS!!


JK Rowling is being a tad mysterious. Click HERE for a maddening screen that does nothing but post a running countdown until an announcement. I suspect it has something to do with a website mentioned yesterday. Pottermore.com is currently an inactive website, but should be up and running soon.


MID-MONTH AGENT TWEETS:

As always, I encourage you to get on Twitter and follow the fabulous agents there. There is SO much great advice given out! Here are a few agent thoughts/opinions from June so far. I think my favorite comes from the awesome Meredith Barnes :)


BostonBookGirl Lauren E. MacLeod
Guys, I can't say this enough. It is ALWAYS a mistake to set your YA/MG in a different time period if you don't have a good reason to do so.

EyeOnFlux Brian Farrey
RT @editrixanica: If your teen characters dress a lot like you (or like teenage you), it's probably time to change their outfits (or yours).

RachelleGardner Rachelle Gardner
The key to a query letter is the same as in good fiction: show, don’t tell. SHOW me your work is amazing.


BostonBookGirl Lauren E. MacLeod
Lots of super high word counts and too-old-for-YA protagonists in my slush today.

BostonBookGirl Lauren E. MacLeod
What do I consider too old? Not in HS anymore. 20+? Too old for YA.


BostonBookGirl Lauren E. MacLeod
It would have to be the *best* book/concept/voice I have EVER read for me to take on a YA about a first year of college.


jennybent Jenny Bent
A request from an agent for a revised ms is signficant--doesn't happen that often. I think sometimes authors only hear the no, but should focus on the maybe.

KevanLyon Kevan Lyon
@xcetrachick #askagent Always a good idea to write query in same narrative voice as your work! *This tweet was in reply to a question on #askagent*

BostonBookGirl Lauren E. MacLeod
Did you start writing your YA novel in 2003 so that is when it is set? If so, try bringing it to the present before submitting.


mer_barnes Meredith Barnes
DO NOT PHONE QUERY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?????????

sarahlapolla Sarah LaPolla
Just received an email from a UK agent in which the word "fortnight" was used, and my day just became more wonderful. *This one is so cute. I would feel the same way!
~ ~ ~

On another note, this afternoon we're having a 16th birthday barbeque for my oldest, and I will be preparing food, cleaning, decorating, and doing yard maintenance all day. I apologize in advance if I don't get around to your blogs until this weekend!






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22 comments:

  2. I saw the HP announcement, too. Only, the version I saw came in some weird code with coordinates that you had to plug in order to decipher what the announcement was about (or somethign like that). When my eyes started to cross, I realized it was time to stop. I love Harry like a brother but J.K.'s news will hit the world soon enough so I'm not going to kill myself trying to figure it out.

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  3. I saw the announcement thing too! I hope she's just writing another book (not a HP book), though I don't know why that would require a huge announcement.

    Thanks for these tweets! I don't follow many agents on Twitter but I'll go check these ones out.

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  4. I heard there was some big HP announcement, but I didn't see what it was.

    Thanks for the tweets. I only check out agents' tweets when I'm querying. There's some great advice here.

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  5. ohman! i've had a feeling this is coming! she set up so much for a new series there at the end of deathly hallows with everyone's kids as the characters! i just figured she was waiting for the movies to finish, and keeping it all secret so that she could have some PEACE while she worked on the new books! at least that's what i'm hoping for!!!!

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  6. How did I miss HP news?? This is the first I'm hearing about it, but I'll definitely check it out.

    And the tweets are always too good. Phone queries? Wow. People actually STILL think that might be ok? :)

    Hope you have a great time at your bbq birthday bash!! Happy bday to your oldest!

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  7. Fantastic and fantastic. I won't sleep for the next 5 days, trying to figure out the Harry Potter news. And you have the greatest tweets, too. The first one is really thought-provoking, and I laughed at Brian Farrey's comment!

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  8. Fabulous tweets. Have a wonderful birthday celebration and good luck getting everything done. BTW, you don't look old enough to have a 16-year old.

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  9. Wow, I'm excited about the JK Rowling news! My head will be spinning with possibilities. And as always, thanks for the heads up on so much great info. You're awesome!

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  10. Awesome! Thnks for this. And have fun this weekend!

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  11. Some of these tweets are great! Very cool. Have a wonderful time celebrating your 16-year-old's big day! Woo hoo!

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  12. Excellent collection of tweets from this week JEss and holy cow... you have a 16 year old?? Amazing. And terrifying. LOL, my oldest is 9 and my two others are 7 and 4 so we're not yet into that teen territory yet. However, it looms like a flesh eating zombie on the horizon...

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  13. Thanks for the info. I always love the agent tweets you post, very cool and fun.

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  14. Mmmmm.... horray for more HP! The suspense is killing me ( ;

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  15. I can't wait to see what JKR has up her sleeve!!! She sure knows how to drum up interest!

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  16. Huh. That first tweet has really made me sit back and think. Yes, I have some reasons for setting my YA in a different time period - but are they GOOD reasons?

    Thanks for sharing these valuable tweets!

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