Category: publishing

• The Negative Review

  For the published author, a negative review can sting hard. We tend to confer disproportionate power on bad reviews, allowing a single sour note to negate all the wonderful things readers have said about our work. For this reason, many of my friends and colleagues resolve not to pay attention to reader reviews, but let’s…

  Karin Rita Gastreich

  March 1, 2022

  Books, creative writing, fantasy, publishing, writing

  author life, writing advice

• Query Letters: The Author Bio

  This marks the fifth installment of an ongoing series on query letters. So far, we’ve covered: Why query? What goes into a query letter? How do I place my book in the market? How do I pitch my book? Today we will talk about the Author Bio. Most query letters finish with a single, short…

  Karin Rita Gastreich

  January 11, 2022

  creative writing, publishing, querying, writing

  amquerying, amwriting

• Query Letters: The Pitch

  So far in this brief series, we’ve covered three topics: Why Query? The Basic Structure of the Query Letter Placing Your Work in the Market Today, I’ll talk about the pitch. The pitch consists of a few sentences that describe the central conflict of your novel in a compelling manner. The pitch is distinct from…

  Karin Rita Gastreich

  November 1, 2021

  creative writing, fantasy, publishing, querying

  #amquerying, agents, editors, publishing, query letters, querying, writing

• Query Letters: The Basics

  A query letter should: Place your work within the market, Provide a brief, compelling description of the manuscript, and Share relevant information about you as an author. Each of these essential functions corresponds to one paragraph. All three paragraphs are assembled to craft the full letter. Taken together, the entire letter should fit on a…

  Karin Rita Gastreich

  July 20, 2021

  creative writing, fantasy, publishing, querying, writing

  amquerying, queries, query letters

• To Query or Not to Query

  I had an interesting exchange with author Sierra Godfrey (@sierragodfrey on Instagram) that got me thinking about the whole question of querying. Sierra posted a great “pep talk post” encouraging authors to get their work into the querying cue. I, too, am an advocate for querying, though I understand why many authors are reluctant to…

  Karin Rita Gastreich

  June 25, 2021

  creative writing, fantasy, publishing, querying, writing

  publishing, querying

• Eolyn: Round Two

  Thomas Vandenberg, who did the cover art for High Maga, has started on a new work depicting a scene from my first novel, Eolyn. I wish I could share the preliminary sketch with you, but a premature unveiling would be unfair. So let me just say: It’s phenomenal. My plan is to use this artwork for a…

  Karin Rita Gastreich

  July 20, 2015

  Eolyn, publishing, writing

  fantasy

• Every Writer’s Nightmare (or, How to Write a Synopsis)

  Few things make a writer groan more than the word synopsis.  I still remember my first encounter with the s-word, back when I finished my novel Eolyn and started the long arduous task of submissions. It seemed an insult, somehow, that anyone should demand I write a less-than-3000-word version of a story that clearly took 120,000 words…

  Karin Rita Gastreich

  April 14, 2015

  publishing, writing

  synopsis