Press Release: Lynne W. Scanlon Hangs Shingle to Help Struggling Authors Reach Literary Agents & Book Publishers…and Get Published
Lynne W. Scanlon Offers Book Proposal Critique Service
to Help Authors Reach Literary Agents and Editors…and Get Published!
Lynne W. Scanlon, also known as The Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM) and columnist for The Publishing Contrarian, announced today that she is offering a new consulting service at www.thepublishingcontrarian.com/getpublished. The service is directed at writers who have been unable to place their fiction or nonfiction manuscripts with literary agents or publishing houses. The Wicked Witch’s new service is designed to help authors tear apart and reconstitute the materials that literary agents and editors first see when a book proposal is submitted. The Wicked Witch’s critique and personal assistance will include
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Targeting the right literary agents, editors and publishing houses.
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Writing a rip-roaring-good query letter to keep out of the slush pile.
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Creating a page-turning book synopsis that stops a literary agent or editor in his or her tracks.
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Developing a marketing plan that proves to a literary agent or editor that this book will sell!
In her March 14th posting on The Publishing Contrarian, the Wicked Witch of Publishing called for email attachments of sample query letters, book synopses, marketing plans and the first few pages of manuscripts—exactly the materials that had been submitted and rejected repeatedly by literary agents and publishing companies. “I wanted to see why people who could obviously write couldn’t get anywhere with their book submissions to literary agents or editors. Whew! One look at the book submission package and I could see why. The query letters were weak, the synopses didn’t sound exciting, and the marketing plans were unfocused—if they existed at all.”
Working with the authors via multiple email exchanges using Microsoft Word’s “Track Changes” feature, Scanlon pointed the authors toward literary agents and publishing companies that would actually be eager to read the book proposal. In addition, she line-edited and helped redraft the query letters and synopses, and teased out of the authors what it was that made their books so exciting and publishable.
“This is probably the most practical help I have received in my writing journey,” said Cathy West, author of the Christian romance, Just a Little Walk.
Lynne W. Scanlon—AKA The Wicked Witch of Publishing—has written three nonfiction books with total sales exceeding 600,000 copies. She has been on radio and TV throughout the United States while on national tour promoting her books. She has been interviewed in Newsweek and profiled on CNN. She was a group publisher of developmental product at A/S/M Communications (publishers of AdWeek magazine) and a consultant in marketing and special sales to Barnes & Noble Books. In the August 29th, 2005 issue of Publishers Weekly, she wrote a “Soapbox” column titled “Slaves to the Galley.” Her weekly column appears in The Publishing Contrarian.
Click on the Wicked Witch logo on the right-hand sidebar of The Publishing Contrarian or go directly to www.thepublishingcontrarian.com/getpublished for more information.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Commenter #3 has caused quite a commotion throughout the blogosphere. Another blogger suggested on his own Web site/blog that Commenter #3 should cut down on her caffeine intake. (June 27th — By the way, I handpick the recipients to whom I send an email announcing a post. I go to their Web sites, read them, and even leave a comment if appropriate. I don’t consider this spamming; I consider it proactive marketing.)
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Wicked Witch, I have a dusty old manuscript hanging around that I had shopped out years ago with no success. I need help with my synopsis of my story–about a married woman who falls for a married man and begins a descent into madness and ultimate redemption. I missed my free opportunity to get your help last time!
June 22nd, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Very Exciting and Congratulations!
PS: That’s Cathy with a C!!
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing(TM): Hi, Cathy! Whoops. I’ll make the correction!
June 22nd, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Why the fuck am I suddenly receiving junk mail from you? Stop it. I am not interested in your crap. Stop sending me email or I will hunt you down. I found your website and I’ll find you. This is your warning crazy asshole. Stop send crap to my address.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): I appreciate you letting me know you want to be removed from my email list, Nancy. Ms. Fay is the VP & Writers Roundtable Coordinator for Pen New Mexico. She is the publicist for the Santa Fe Art Institute. She and Judith Rafaela edited Written With a Spoon: A Poet’s Cookbook (Sherman Asher Publishing) and The Practice of Peace (Sherman Asher Publishing).
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Good God, a little anger management problem there, Nancy? Glad I’m not related to you.
I still like getting your emails, Lynne.
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:02 pm
Hi Lynne - It’s been a few months since you helped me with my submission materials. But I wanted to let you know that an agent who recently requested a partial said that she was very intriqued by my pitch.
You wrote the pitch - and obviously, it was great.
Thanks again for all your time and hand-holding. I feel so much more confident sending out my query and marketing plan.
Later,
Delilah
PS When people say or do bizarre things, just remember what my Mama always told me: “Crazy is as Crazy does.”
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): With permission, I am reprinting the opening line of Delilah’s query letter to literary agents:
’Til the Day We Die: Secrets of an All-Boys’ Prep School (topical literary fiction/90,000 words) is a heartbreaking coming‑of-age tale of the devastating impact of abuse and cover‑up on three good boys and their upper‑middle class families. The story takes place in an elite private day school, not a parochial or inner‑city school the public stereotypically associates with abuse.
June 22nd, 2006 at 9:49 pm
Re Nancy Fay:
I’m always impressed by a poet’s grasp of the nuances of language.
June 23rd, 2006 at 4:05 am
Way to go Lynne. Thanks for your help with The Three Bears
June 23rd, 2006 at 10:07 am
Is [Nancy Fay] really all those things? How absolutely hilarious and humiliating is that? She is definitely a whack job. Holy cow!!
June 23rd, 2006 at 10:38 am
Lynne, witches are the best, and you are the best of the best.
If only I had ever written that book.
Maybe your venture will give me the kick I need.
June 23rd, 2006 at 1:38 pm
I’m so glad to see you achieving yet another success, Lynn. I wish you many more (and know you’ll have them).
Hey, about the note above from young Nancy, remember that this is becoming today’s normal mode of communicating–the new business style, if you will–ushered in by the “in-your-face” generation. It’s uncomfortable for many of us, of course, but we need to grow accustomed to it!
June 23rd, 2006 at 2:20 pm
Great news Lynne, talent and class in a single package!
Poor ol’ Nancy, the lid must have hit her on the back of the head when she was getting a drink of water.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing TM): Steve, you been receiving votes for “Best Comment To Date.”
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:18 pm
[...] Lynne W. Scanlon Hangs Shingle to Help Struggling Authors Reach Literary Agents & Book Publishers?and Get PublishedThe Wicked Witch is starting a proposal critique service. [...]
June 24th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
June 24th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
It would seem that Mr. Clackson is more skilled in the use of evocative imagery than Poet/Essayist/Novelist Fay.
June 25th, 2006 at 9:36 am
Click on over to The View from the Pundy House. Bill Liversidge in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, has an interesting post today, June 25th, titled “The World is a Dangerous Place.” However, he’s not against “hate-tipped arrows” in “blogland.” Read why.
See also Ron Hogan’s post “I Don’t Want Any Spam!” at Media Bistro’s Galley Cat and Frank Wilson’s “Wicked Witch Hangs Out a Shingle” at Booksinq. I had to look up “brickbat” in the latter post!
I just discovered that E.J. Knapp at his blog, Only On Sunday, in New Mexico has cleverly put Nancy Fay’s comment into poetic format in his post titled “WTF!”
June 26th, 2006 at 9:23 am
Gracious! I’ve emerged from my cave to check your comments and let’s say I’m a little taken aback! Somebody needs to up their meds.
As I said to my husband whilst watching a ‘reality’ show that displayed much of the same language, “Why can’t people just speak civilly anymore?”
Sorry you had to receive that email, sadder yet that somebody would actually send it.
I think you rock!
June 26th, 2006 at 9:56 am
Hey Lynne.
[Also] just wanted to share with you that an agent has requested a partial from me for Hidden in the Heart - thanks, largely I’m sure, to your help in getting that query letter sparkling!!
I’m praying she asks to see the full!
Cathy
June 26th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Newsflash!!!!! Nancy Fay has been awarded The First Annual Mike Tyson Award for The Promotion of the Social Graces.
June 26th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
Wow, nice language! She sounds like most 17-year-olds trying to get control of a situation. But I guess you got her message, didn’t you?
If I was you, I wouldn’t send her anything else. I just don’t think she can take it.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Judy is from Seattle. Her book, The Bad Girls Club, was published in 2005! Welcome, Judy!
June 26th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
I received an email today, even though I did/do not know who Lynnw Scanlon is, but I figured I’d come over and see what the fuss was about. Also figured if this was something I wasn’t interested in, I’d just hit “delete” and/or “spam” and/or/and/or “block.” Will look around.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Thanks, Kathryn, for stopping by for the first time! Check out her Web site, The Wolf Howls, and feel the hair stand up on the back of your neck.
June 27th, 2006 at 6:48 am
Lynne - I don’t think Nancy’s problem can be attributed to something as benign as too much caffeine. Me thinks it goes a bit deeper.
I’m commenting anonymously so she doesn’t look up my website then hunt me down like a dog. Yipes!
June 27th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Congratulations and best wishes on your new venture. If I were ever to become deranged enough to want to try to be a published author, you are the first person whose counsel I would solicit and, maybe, even pay for.
Using “counsel” and “solict[or]” in the prior sentence makes me think back to the day I met John Scher (an East Coast Rock Music Promoter) while in my role as a very young attorney. He used a pet phrase of his: “What goes around, comes around.” It was the first time I had ever heard that cliche. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. What went around? Around what? Anyway, I eventually figured out what that phrase means.
One can only hope that Ms. Nancy Fey feels the full weight of what she sent around when it comes back around and hits her in the back of the head, after being magnified a hundred-fold (or, perhaps a googol-fold) by the power of the World Wide Web. Me thinks she will soon regret not having learned to be more solicitous when speaking into a virtual “open mike.”
Also the diagnosis of the other blogger you cite is dead wrong. Ms. Fey is clearly not suffering from too much caffeine but, rather, a surfeit of bile. She needs to come to The Hamptons on a glorious, sunny day, sit on the patio of a winery (e.g., the one where I was just made the new Tasting Room Manager), gaze out upon the vines while sipping a delightful, cold summer wine, contemplate what life’s all about and realize how short and unpredictable it, and then utter the mantra: “What goes around, comes around.” Cheers!
June 28th, 2006 at 5:18 am
Hi Lynne - Have you checked out the post on misssnark.com about Nancy Fay’s response to your email announcing your service?
Now I bet we’ll see some Really interesting comments on the subject! Should be an interesting debate.
And all you were trying to do was announce a service that will be invaluable to new writers. The whole thing has certainly taken on a life of it’s own.
June 28th, 2006 at 7:28 am
Lynne: I’m excited! And, it’s not from the release of a new varietal vintage this week at the winery. Does your posting my Comment on your web site make me a “published author?” Nah, I don’t think so.
Also, “googol-fold” was NOT a typo. As I like to tell the High School students and Intermediate School students I was teaching the past couple of years as their Super Substitute, “the dictionary is your friend,” and it’s the one book that you cannot be without. Although Google is omnipresent, it has not yet changed the language of mathematics. Perhaps I should have said “googolplex-fold.?”
Note from the Wicked Witch of the West (TM): Hi, Dave! Sorry, I automatically corrected what I thought was a typo. I’m changing it back right now to “googol-fold.” Sounds like you have a GREAT job!
June 28th, 2006 at 8:37 am
I see literary agent extraordinaire, Miss Snark, is weighing in on this topic over at her blog!
Just to clarify: I handpick the recipients to whom I send an email announcing a post. I go to their Web sites, read them, and even leave a comment if appropriate. I don’t consider this spamming; I consider it proactive marketing
June 28th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
Could there be a better demonstration of the WW’s marketing chutzpah than this spamflap? Obviously, this broad (if
Ann Coulter can use it, I can) is a pro-motor! On the Web, you gotta find a way to get viral–LWS clearly operates in the H5N1 Class.
June 29th, 2006 at 10:37 pm
I’d like to invite Nancy to hunt me down. And, Lynne, don’t know if Krista told you, but “Path of the Butterfly” got its first “send us the first 50 pages” from an agent today. The people who (unfairly) label you a spammer should know how much you have helped beginning writers (ones with something to say, natch) in the past year.
Frazer
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Wow, Frazer, that’s just terrific news about Path of the Butterfly!!! And thanks for the note of support.
July 1st, 2006 at 2:19 pm
Re: the flap with Commenter #3–Sadly, this is normal internet behavior for today, like “road rage.” People say things they would never say in person. Everywhere. This is why the internet has lost much of its value, by being taken over by the wild “in-your-face” crowd, and is why I have greatly limited my time to it and reverted to, you got it, the public library. They still require people to shut up
August 8th, 2006 at 12:19 am
[...] Unfortunately, an anonymous poster included her website’s URL in this profanity-laden threat directed to author/blogger Lynne W. Scanlon for sending her a press release about Lynne’s new business venture. I love that the poster is the author of The Practice of Peace. Perhaps Practice What You Preach is more like it. (Thanks to Miss Snark for the chuckle of the day.) [...]
February 8th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Any advice for how to get a vigilante justice thriller published… oh, the subject? A psychologist from the USA who has suffered sexual abuse in the past goes vigilante on a network of pedophiles based in Thailand. It’s exciting! It’s new. It was cathartic. It is untouchable by publishers and agents just because of the subject matter - even though it’s totally ANTI-pedophile… I found you when I looked up Lorra Laven’s book so I thought I’d leave a comment. Maybe you had good advice for her. I hope you didn’t tell her to self-publish!
Mike
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Hi, Mike. I did read a bit of your story and found it had a relentless, hard-edged tone that didn’t appeal to me. I had intellectual sympathy for your main character and his situation, but emotionally, I didn’t care because you didn’t take the time to create a character with whom I could empathize.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:45 am
Hi WWOP, Thanks for the feedback. Yes, it’s a bit hard-edged.
But that’s me, you know? Thanks for your response, much appreciated. Mike.