Twelve Days of Writing

Day Eight:  Track those submissions, baby!

So, yesterday, I listed twelve romance publishers, now, well, I want to talk about the extreme importance of tracking submissions. As soon as you submit a story to someone–a magazine editor, a book editor, an agent–you need to immediately write down that submission. I created a very simple Excel file for my submissions. I just created a couple of columns and listed:  Title of The Work, Person/Publishing House Submitted To (include address here),  Date of Submission, Type of Material Sent (i.e., query letter, partial, full), and Response (yeah, this one will be left blank for a while).

This is the main reason why I like to have a submission file:  So I can know when to follow up on my submissions! If you check out a publisher’s submission guidelines, usually there will be some sort of time-line offered for responses (say, 4 to 6 months). I never wanted to be a pest and hound publishing houses too early, so I waited until my time-line was exhausted, then, I would send a follow-up note or email.

Of course, I also like my submission tracker because it always me to look back over the year and see just what I’ve done. In addition to agents and publishing houses, I also include any contests that I’ve entered in my tracker.

So…do you have a tracker? If not, are you gonna make one?

Twelve Days of Writing

Day Seven:  The (Romance) Publishers

Today, I thought I would list links to some (12, for my 12 Days) of the romance publishers:

Kensington Publishing

Avon/Harper Collins

Dorchester

Berkley

Harlequin

Red Sage

Ellora’s Cave

ImaJinn Books

Samhain

Grand Central Publishing

Highland Press 

Juno Books

Twelve Days of Writing

Day Six: The query

Okay, I’m feeling a bit under the weather today (okay, more than a bit right now), so I’m afraid I’m gonna cheat on this post. Previously, I’ve blogged about the steps for writing a query, and, well, I’m just gonna link to those steps here.

I am such a cheater.

Quick drive by post to say that I’ve got an interview up at Fierce Romance (a big thanks to Nicole!). I’m also continuing to visit with the always awesome Ali–hmmm…did I mention she was giving away lots of books?

And…HOTTER AFTER MIDNIGHT  is available for pre-order on Amazon! Yay!!!

Twelve days of Writing

Day Five:  Procrastination

Oh, yeah, procrastination is the devil. It can kill a career so quickly. Why? Well, if you don’t write because, oh, say, you have to wash clothes or watch that show on television or clean the floors (yeah, I’ve done that one before), you will never get a book written–and thus will not have a writing career.

It is so easy to procrastinate. And so very tempting.

And you know what? Hell. I’m doing it right this minute. Procrastinating. I’ve got a book waiting on me. Actually, I’m in the process of fleshing out ideas for a trilogy that I want to write–after I finish the project I’m currently doing. Time to get my butt in gear. No matter what you may have heard other authors say, those books really don’t write themselves!