Free Serialized Romance!

E-Reads presents our first serialized ebook, The Faithful. These faithful are a cadre of volunteers devoted to the most charismatic presidential candidate in fifty years. The story is a sexy, cliffhanger romance taking place during the 2008 presidential campaign and it's published in weekly installments, available only at E-Reads.

What Your Agent Has Done For You Lately

After talking a hotheaded author out of beating up his copyeditor, I began to reflect on some of the unusual things that agents are called upon to do in the course of their careers. I am often asked to speak to groups of aspiring writers and explain just what literary agents do. I wonder how the audience would react if I told them that among other things, literary agents babysit for their clients' kids, paint their clients' houses, and bail their clients out of jail. They even fall in love with their clients and marry them. In fact, I have done all these things and more.

If you think that all agents do is submit manuscripts in the morning, collect checks in the afternoon, and go to lunch for three hours in between, you're in for some interesting insights. Click here for the inside dope on the secret lives of literary agents.

- Richard Curtis

Are Literary Agents Friends or Rivals?

Are literary agents friendly with each other? Are they mutually suspicious or hostile? Do they steal authors from each other at every opportunity, or do they cooperate with one another? Do they have a code of behavior? Are they too competitive to act collectively? You may be surprised to learn the answers. For the complete article, click here

All Agencies Great and Small: Part 2

I'm not sure that authors understand the structures of literary agencies much better than they understand those of publishing companies. For those of you who are shopping for an agent or thinking of switching agencies, or who are simply interested in organizational dynamics, it might be interesting to compare agencies of different sizes and structures and to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each type. In the first installment of this piece we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of sole practitioner literary agencies.

With the introduction of a second person into the agency - even a secretary with no discretionary power - the dynamics of the firm usually alter sharply

To read more, click here.

Burn, Which, Burn!

The good news is that book editors are now reading manuscript submissions on Sony E-Book Readers and Amazon Kindles. But agent Richard Curtis reminds us that one unwelcome byproduct of this innovation is that Word for Windows documents, the format of choice for most authors, display typographical and grammatical errors in the form of glaring red and green underlines that distract editors and might even make them question your writing skills. To read Curtis's analysis of what writers should do about all those "Reddies" and "Greenies", click here.

All Agencies Great and Small - Part 1

I'm not sure that authors understand the structures of literary agencies much better than they understand those of publishing companies. For those of you who are shopping for an agent or thinking of switching agencies, or who are simply interested in organizational dynamics, it might be interesting to compare agencies of different sizes and structures and to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each type.

To read more, click here.

Do Agents Have Clout?

Whenever authors gather to discuss the merits of their agents (it may legitimately be wondered whether they ever discuss anything else), the word "clout" inevitably enters the conversation. Clout is the measure of an agent's influence over publishers, and though it is by no means the sole criterion by which agents are judged, it is certainly the ultimate one. What is clout? How do agents wield it? And is it everything we crack it up to be?

To read more, click here.