AuthorPlanet

A sweet spot between traditional and self-publishing

The Big Year Becomes a Movie

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The Big Year by Mark Obmascik

Fantastic Read: THE BIG YEAR

So what’s it like when a literary agent represents a book that becomes a major movie? 

Ummm, well…I have a poster.  And, to be fair, although movie money for book people isn’t what movie money is for movie people, I’ve got no complaints.  But that money came and went a long time ago–Jack Black isn’t giving my kids guitar lessons, Owen Wilson hasn’t asked me out to dinner, and Steve Martin [Read more…]

New York Times Says Publishers are Terrified

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The mind boggles, sometimes, at the unnecessary hyperbole in writings about the publishing industry , especially online.  I’ll do my best to temper the frenzy I see with the facts I know.

Today: wacko omissions from The New York Times and the mind-boggling mixup by the National Book Awards  (who got book titles confused & included the wrong book when [Read more…]

Digital Book Proposals: Jody’s Five Keys

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Digital book proposals are here to stay, and while I kicked and screamed about it for quite a while, at some point about a year ago I decided to take it as my own personal challenge.  I pride myself on thinking like as an editor as well as thinking like an agent, so I said to my editor-self: “What’s different about how you experience a book proposal when you’re reading it on a Kindle?”  And I answered, “Wow, I hadn’t thought of that, but it’s actually a pretty different feeling!”  

I checked out my hypothesis at BEA last spring with a very official survey (“Hey, editor friend, do you react differently to a printout than to a digital proposal?”  Answer: “Well, [Read more…]