On May 20th, 2010 Tyler R. Tichelaar and Victor R. Volkman spoke with Manhattan literary agent Katharine Sands of the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency. She helped educate us on the basics of good “pitchcraft”, including
What is pitching?
Why is pitching your work so important?
Why there is such a relentless emphasis on platforming a book…
What are some rules for pitching a book?
How does self-publishing play into this equation?
What do I need to know about becoming a full-time nonfiction author
Katharine Sands‘ new book Making the Perfect Pitch: How to Catch a Literary Agent’s Eye is a collection of pitching wisdom from leading literary agents. Actively building her client list, she likes books that have a clear benefit for readers’ lives in categories of food, travel, lifestyle, home arts, beauty, wisdom, relationships, parenting, and fresh looks, which might be at issues, life challenges or popular culture. when reading fiction she wants to be compelled and propelled by urgent storytelling, and hooked by characters. For memoir and femoir, she likes to be transported to a world rarely or newly observed.
On April 3rd, 2008, Irene Watson and Victor R. Volkman spoke with author, publicity guru, and connection maker Gini Scott Graham of Making Connections, Gini spoke with us on the all-important subject of doing queries for the purposes of syndication, getting an agent, selling media rights, and finding a publisher. She has published over 50 books herself and has an extensive background in personal and professional development, problem solving, decision-making, conflict resolution, and interpersonal relationship techniques for over 25 years.
She has gained extensive media interest for previous books, including appearances on Good Morning America, Oprah, Montel Williams, CNN, and hundreds of radio interviews. She has been frequently quoted by the media, such as a recent short piece in Cosmopolitan seeking advice on a workplace conflict.
Dr. Gini Graham Scott, is the Founder and Creative Director for Making Connections, a Web-based Internet service that connects clients by – email with publishers, agents, the film industry, the media, the game and toy industry, the music industry and others. The company helps clients write an effective query letter that will be received and read and sends out personalized queries to hard to reach contacts in these fields. The company has had over 1000 clients in the 5 years since it was founded, has been written up in the Wall Street Journal and other publications, and has success stories and kudos from over 250 clients – some who have gotten six figure deals through using the service.
On March 20th, 2008, Irene Watson and Victor R. Volkman spoke with Dave Kuzminski, creator and manager of Predators and Editors, the infamous website where scammers and companies with a record of complaints are recorded. Dave helped us distinguish the dark side of book promotion, agents, and publishing by covering such thorny topics as: the difference between a bad business deal and a scam, the evolution of a scam and what types of people are running them, how to avoid a scam, and what to do if you think you’ve been had.
Dave Kuzminski is both a writer and the owner and editor of Preditors & Editors. As a writer, he manages to inflict words upon readers in order to entertain them. He’s been writing for several decades. As an editor, he manages to inflict recommendations upon publishing businesses who sometimes aren’t entertained. He’s done that for eleven years though it probably feels like several decades to some of those businesses that are recommended against. One of his favorite titles is Knight Spirits and its available from Double Dragon Publishing.
On August 30th, 2007 Irene Watson and Victor R. Volkman spoke with publishing agent Greg Daniel. Greg formed his own company this year after more than ten years in publishing, six of which were at the executive level at Thomas Nelson Publishers, the largest Christian publisher in the world. Most recently Greg was Vice President and Associate Publisher for W Publishing Group (formerly Word Publishing), a trade book division of Thomas Nelson. He shared with us key questions a new author has to answer:
When do you need an agent and when can you go-it-alone?
how do you narrow the field of agents and/or publishers?
how can you approach an agent in the way that will produce the best results?
How can I come up with a sellable book idea?
What is a platform and is it really all that important?
Throughout his publishing career, Greg has had the honor of working with in the past such critically acclaimed authors as Brian McLaren, Max Lukado, Phyllis Tickle, Mark Buchanan, Oz Guinness, and Ken Gire. Greg has also been involved with publishing books by a number of celebrity personalities, including Bono, George Foreman, syndicated radio hosts Rick and Bubba, and “Black Hawk Down” hero Captain Jeff Struecker.Greg has been responsible for such notable books as the ECPA Gold Medallion Award-winning books A Table in the Presence and Extreme Devotion. He teaches writing workshops at a handful of conferences each year .
