by Jamie Chavez | Mar 29, 2016 | The Book Biz
We have a problem in the book industry. No, I’m not talking about the growth of Amazon. I’m not talking about the myriad folks who claim to be award-winning and best-selling, even when they are not. Nor am I talking about the virtual explosion of self-published crap....
by Jamie Chavez | Feb 15, 2016 | The Book Biz
I’ve always prided myself on being reasonably up to date (though not, perhaps, on the cutting edge), particularly for a gal who didn’t grow up with technology. I got a computer pretty early on for a nongeek (back in the days when an app was called software, y’all),...
by Jamie Chavez | Feb 8, 2016 | The Book Biz, Your Editor Says …
After you and I spend a couple months working on the content of your manuscript—catching some continuity issues or working on characterization, say, in fiction, or beefing up clarity or connecting a few dots in nonfiction—you might well heave a big sigh of relief. You...
by Jamie Chavez | Jan 7, 2016 | The Book Biz
In the summer of 1994, I lost my publisher, Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, as the sales figures for Reed’s Beach, my latest novel, sucked. … My editor had already bought the next two books after Reed’s Beach, a story collection and a memoir, but...
by Jamie Chavez | Oct 26, 2015 | The Book Biz
Not long ago—in the summer months—I had to explain to a writer that even if the very first publisher to whom he showed his (beautifully edited, ahem) manuscript* loved it (and he had a very specific publisher in mind), there was no way the book would be in the stores...
by Jamie Chavez | Oct 17, 2015 | The Arts & Media, The Book Biz
If you’re an author, you’ve probably been asked to provide your publisher’s marketing folks with a list of keywords for your latest novel. If you’re me, you’ve been given that “product packet” and asked to provide yet more keywords, preferably better ones, when you’re...
