Very often, finding an agent to represent your work feels like a cross between luck, fate, and flipping a coin. But first-time author Allan Woodrow decided to use with a slightly more scientific method. Beginning with a strong manuscript (that's really the most important thing, after all), a stand-out query, and a system for researching, ranking and submitting to agents, he landed an agent within a month and sold his first middle grade novel, The Rotten Adventures of Zachary Ruthless, to HarperCollins two months later.

Read all about his secret here, and then put it to work for yourself.

Publishing can be a dog-eat-dog world (or, as one editor once said, bunny-eat-bunny). It's not a place for the fainthearted–if you want a spot on a publisher's list, you have to be willing to stand up and fight.

I'm exaggerating, of course (just a bit, anyway). But young adult writer Frankie Diane Mallis took this attitude to heart when she went after landing her dream agent. She outlines her attack in four stages (Training, Weapons, Battle Plan, Winning the War) in her article on the Guide to Literary Agents blog. No, she's not dangerous, just very determined. And her plan worked, so maybe it will work for you too.

I've been harping on the notion that the book industry is going through exactly what the music industry did 10 years ago. The good news there is that we can avoid their mistakes.

The even better news is that we can borrow some ideas from music's more inventive artists about how to deal with the new digital reality.

Here's one I really like:

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/06/03/from-ricky-wilson-of-the-kaiser-chiefs/

Basically, the band recorded 20 tracks and lets fans create their own CD — and their own unique artwork — by picking their favorite 10 songs. Neat idea, and
something that can be copied by authors with either short story anthologies or "create your own adventure" stories.

Read the piece — it's well worth your time.  And then, visit the band's website to fiddle around with the technology — it's really, really cool and would fit wonderfully on an author's site.

It seems that reports of the death of books have been greatly exaggerated (with apologies to Mark Twain). As the numbers continue to roll in, it's clear that people still read, more titles are being published than ever, and e-books are taking their place alongside print books, not replacing them. As reported in "Is the Book Dead? Let That Myth Rest in Peace" from The Atlantic, 288,355 new and reissued titles were published in 2009, and Bowker (the data agency for publishing) speculates that the numbers will be higher in 2010 and 2011. And — here's a really astounding statistic — an additional 764,448 titles fell into the self-published, micro-niche and print-on-demand categories.

Think about that for a moment. For the first time in publishing history, authors are self-publishing more books than publishing houses are producing. Considering that these numbers are over a year old, and advances in e-publishing are happening faster than you can download an app from the iStore, 2011 could potentially near the one million mark in self-published titles.

Upon hearing this, many seasoned authors (read: those with several traditionally-published books under their belts) worry about the lack of gate-keepers. If so many people are self-publishing (and publishers are paying attention to successful self-published efforts, as described in this Publishers Weekly article), who's going to decide what's good? Who's going to create the buzz, tell us what to buy? Without the taste-makers, how will we know what to read?

It's a seismic change, to be sure. And like all changes, it feels a bit scary. But the answer boils down to one word: you.

You, as the consumer, get to decide with your dollars what constitutes a good book. Sure, book buyers always voted with their purchases, but the pool of choices was limited by what publishers presented. And publishers often make decisions based on non-artistic criteria: Does this book cash in on a current trend? Is the market broad enough to make a substantial profit? Will it stay on the shelves of Barnes & Noble for more than three months? Is the author a celebrity? Many great books get published each year, but just as many great books get rejected because they don't quite fit the corporate plan. Readers have never had the opportunity to decide for themselves if those books deserve to exist. Now they can.

You, as the author, still have to put in the work, learning how to write, learning how to revise, and learning how to communicate with your audience. That age-old truth won't change. But now, after you've workshopped the manuscript, had it professionally edited and gotten the go-ahead from your writers' group, you have the power to see your words in print. Since self-publishing is rapidly losing its stigma as the last resort for rejected authors, you have a real choice of submitting to publishers or producing the book yourself. You also now have a choice of paper or electronic formats. Low-cost and no-cost options for e-books mean you can make your dream a reality without a trust fund.

You, as the publicist for your book, can generate reviews, create a buzz, connect with readers and set up personal appearances in direct proportion to the amount of time you're willing to devote to marketing. You're not limited by the publisher's marketing dollars going to the big authors, or the New York Times' limited space in their book review section. The internet is the great equalizer, giving authors the same access to their audience as publishers have had. The more you reach out, the more sales you'll see. It's that simple.

The book is far from dead, and the opportunities for authors are more plentiful than ever. The only difference is that now both authors and consumers have more choices, which means they're responsible for deciding what constitutes a worthy book. As an author, you now have options: you can go the time-honored route of submitting to agents and publishers, waiting months for a reply, and hoping you're one of the lucky ones who gets a book contract. Then you can hope your book sells enough to get contract #2. Many authors still find success and fulfillment this way, and if you're one of those, then I'm looking forward to seeing your book on the shelves. But if you're tired of waiting, you believe in your book and you're not afraid to do the work necessary to get it out there, then for the first time you have equal (or very close) access to book production and marketing as the big publishers. And it's only going to get easier.

So make your choice. Your readers are waiting.

You gotta watch this.  It's from Seth Godin, one of the smartest folks out there, and he's walked the walk:

There are some amazing tools available today to help you create and edit your work — if you know where to look. In this two-part series we will gather some of the best of the many choices for your review.

D. Offer writes for Write4Kids. Offer manages the popular Facebook emoticons and Facebook smiley website Emoinstaller.com. Emoinstaller can add hundreds of additional Facebook chat emoticons into your Facebook account in just a few clicks.

Word Processing Software

There are still writers who use electric typewriters and even pen-and-paper, but today the word processor has become the norm for most writers. A good word processing program is the first, best tool in the writer’s toolbox, and fortunately there are some great alternatives available. The flexibility and productivity that a word processing program can bring to editing and revising your work is a nothing short of amazing, making it a must-have app for any writer who is serious about their work.

Microsoft Word  (Windows / Mac)  $102 to $120

Still the most popular word processing software on the market since it stole first place from Word Perfect way back in the 1990’s, Microsoft Word is clearly one of the best word processing programs available. Word offers some amazing tools that go way past simple word processing, including the ability to manage longer documents, apply styles and themes to your work, and is even capable of creating a self-updating Table of Contents and a detailed Index.

For most writers, however, most of the features are over-kill and are not really needed. Your publisher doesn’t need you to submit with the degree of formatting that is available in Word, in fact most discourage the practice. Also there is the problem of the price. The standalone version of Word is going for about $102 while you can pick up a copy of the Microsoft Office Home & Students edition for about $120 if you do a little shopping. The Home & Students edition includes the popular Microsoft programs Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote (we’ll talk about OneNote later), and if you have a use for them the package deal offers more bang for the buck.

You can also test drive the suite for free if you want to see if you think it’s worth the money through the Office website. We’ve included it here because despite the cost, no list of word processing programs would be complete without an entry for Word.

LibreOffice  (Windows / Mac / Linux)  Free

LibreOffice Writer is a free, open-source Office application that offers an entire suite of productivity programs designed to compete directly with Microsoft Office. Just like the Professional version of Office, LibreOffice offers programs that can handle word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, etc.

Writer, the word processor that comes with LibreOffice, is a full-featured program that offers almost everything a writer could want in a word processor. It does take slightly longer to load than maybe we’d like, but if you’re looking for an alternative to Microsoft Office without spending your hard-earned money, then Writer is an excellent choice.

FocusWriter  (Windows/Mac/Linux)  Free

One of the problems many writers have with programs like Word and Writer is that they are cluttered with features that are completely unnecessary. In response, the developers of FocusWriter have developed a distraction-free, word processing program that lets you stay focused on the writing. They do, however, provide you with the core set of features most writers will find handy.

You can set FocusWriter to fill your whole screen so that only thing you can see is the page, with options to change the appearance to one that works for you. The features it does offer have been developed with the writer in mind. You can open a number of documents at once utilizing a tabbed interface that makes the documents available without cluttering up your screen.

One feature unique to FocusWriter is the ability to set and track a daily goal for how much writing you want to accomplish each day. You can define your goal in terms of time spent writing or word count, depending on which works best for you, and FocusWriter will track your progress for you. It works even when you spread your writing out over the course of an entire day, and the software saves your results so you can review your progress against your goal at any time.

Second runner up to the Daily Goal tool in terms of its overall coolness is the ability to add typewriter sounds that give the user the illusion that they are working on an old Royal typewriter, complete with the familiar ding as you pounded each key as well as that wonderful sound that marked each time you hit enter to return the ribbon at the end of each line. The sound-effects are so amazingly realistic that you’ll have a hard time remembering you’re not using a real typewriter. It adds no real value, but it is fun to use.

BONUS APP:

DropBox  (Windows/Mac/Linux)  Free

One way to make sure you have copies of your work for years to come is to make you have a place to back-up your documents, and DropBox is a great cloud-based solution for document storage. A free download installs a DropBox folder that you can access just like any other folder. The DropBox folder is then synced with your DropBox account on the web and your files are stored on the DropBox servers. The free account gets you 2GB worth of document storage with more available for lease each month.

The app is so popular blogs are posting new ways to use DropBox to trick out your desktop, and there is a music player under development. A website login also lets you access your files from anywhere with an internet connection, meaning you can write anywhere without missing a beat.

Internet-based companies continue to appear by the dozens, and many of them are offering excellent tools and apps that can help you create, and edit your work. We’ll continue to keep our eye out for the best, and report back soon.

There are some amazing tools available today to help you create and edit your own work  if you know where to look. In this two-part series we will gather some of the best of the many choices for your review.

D. Offer writes for Write4Kids. Offer manages the popular Facebook emoticons and Facebook smiley website Emoinstaller.com. Emoinstaller can add hundreds of additional Facebook chat emoticons into your Facebook account in just a few clicks.

Even the most successful authors will agree there is a lot more to the writing business than just the writing. Sites like Write4Kids can be a great way to learn about the world of query letters, agents, publishing houses, and proposals. To be successful you’ll have to learn to master this strange, new world.

And yet, the writing is still the main thing – and the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

To help improve your work we’ve searched the internet to bring you some amazing tools that can be had for little or nothing – if you know where to look. In this post, we’ll review some tools to help make researching your work a little easier and discuss Google and Microsoft’s attempts to bring word processing to the Cloud.

Research Tools

Today’s readers are increasingly more sophisticated, and they demand a high level of realism and authenticity in their fiction. Being true to the facts is critical, and errors can derail the credibility of your story with the reader. A careful attention to the details is necessary regardless of the genre  and that means doing the necessary research.

We’ve gathered the best tools available that will make research as painless, and productive as possible. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses and as with any tool it is important you pick the one that fits you best.

Microsoft OneNote  (Windows/Mac)  $64 to $120

Although we’ve mostly eliminated commercial applications from our list, OneNote by Microsoft offers amazing flexibility and a rich set of features, making it simply too good to ignore. Microsoft describes OneNote as “a digital notebook that provides a single place where you can gather all of your notes and information, with the added benefits of powerful search capabilities” and this handy little program easily lives up to the hype.

First it can store almost every type of file imaginable, including electronic copies of your handwritten notes, emails, text messages, photos, music, videos, and even audio recordings from your cell phone’s voice notes function. The search capability includes being able to recognize words within pictures as well as in audio and video files, making finding what you need even easier.

Keeping your notes organized in notebooks can save countless hours looking for lost documents and files. A “Send to OneNote” option is added to your right mouse click buttons that makes sending anything to your notebook incredibly simple. And a feature called a Side Note can open a blank notebook page that can be used to jot down ideas as the come to you, minimizing the interruption to your work flow. You can find OneNote for around $64 or get is as part of Microsoft Office Home & Student addition which will also give you Word, Excel and PowerPoint for less than $120 if you do a little shopping. If you’re on a budget you may want to consider some of the other programs listed, but OneNote is an incredibly powerful program and the clear category leader.

EverNote  (Windows/Mac/Linux)  Free

With many of the features, EverNote is a good alternative to OneNote and the basic version is offered at no charge. A free download gives you a powerful note-taking app for your desktop that integrates easily with a web-based version, allowing you to take notes on any computer and sync them to your home machine later. The basic version offers most users everything they will ever need to easily do research and take notes for later use.

The interface is well designed and makes organization easy and intuitive. Multiple notebooks can be created and you can easily switch between them. EverNote excels at capturing entire webpages for later reference but you can also access a feature that allows you to “clip” the section of the page you want and leave the rest.

EverNote offers a premium edition that costs $5/month to access. It allows you the ability to store Office documents that is not offered in the free edition as well as greater file size. While EverNote continues to add features and is closing in on OneNote in value, if you are going to invest in a program OneNote offers the best value.

Zootool  (Window/Mac/Linux)  Free

Although not designed with research specifically in mind, an internet bookmarking app call Zootool will let users capture and organize information from across the internet. According to its developers: “Zootool is about collecting, organizing and sharing your favorite images, videos, documents, and links from all over the internet.”

Zootool is really more of a social networking site than a digital notebook, but it will allow you to easily capture and store the information you find across the web. For many writers this is all they really need, and sometimes simple is best.

Quick Note  (Windows/Mac/Linux)  Free

If you favor a no-frills approach, Quick Note may be for you. It does require you to use either the Google Chrome or Firefox internet browser, but if you want a quick way to store links to pages and a great way to take notes as you are working Quick Note may be the choice for you. In fact, even if you choose one of the other apps featured, you may want to consider adding Quick Note to your toolbox anyway. The cloud-based app makes taking notes and outlining ideas quick and simple.

Installation also adds a Quick Note link to your right-mouse key that lets you open a new note easily, jot down your idea, and quickly get back to work.

Word Processing – Cloud Edition

A good word processing application is without a doubt the most important tool in a writer’s toolbox. In Part II of this series we’ll examine some desktop applications that will meet the needs of almost every writer. We’ve started by listing two of the major cloud-based apps that are being offered by Google and Microsoft that are worth taking a few moments to review.

Microsoft Word  (Windows/Mac/Linux)  Free

Microsoft is offering a stripped down version of Word as part its recent Web Apps initiative. Known as Office Web, users are given access to versions of the popular Microsoft Office suite of productivity programs with reduced functionality, but which are probably more than adequate for most writers. You will need to sign-up for a free Windows Live account that includes free email and access to a SkyDrive account that is used to store your work. You want to consider the wisdom of keeping all of your work on any single, Cloud-based site however.

Google Docs  (Windows/Mac/Linus)  Free

Like Microsoft, Google is offering a word processor as part of its cloud-based challenge to Microsoft Office called Google Docs. You’ll also need to sign up for a free Google account that will also give you access to a free email account, a calendar for scheduling, a YouTube account, and generally any and all things Google. The features are more than most writers will ever need, and like Web Apps your documents are stored in your account on the cloud. You’ll want to make a back-up of your work though, just-in-case.

That does it for tools to help you with doing research on the web and a quick look at the new cloud-based, web processing options from Google and Microsoft. Next time we’ll take a look at desktop word processing programs – the most important tool in the Writer’s Toolbox.

Book Bloggers Are a Fantastic Resource

Back in the old days (circa anything before about 2003), authors wrote the book, publishers published it, and the publisher's publicity department send out review copies and scheduled author interviews. While publicity departments still send review copies to primary print reviewers and a few high-profile online sources, the bulk of the marketing is now the author's responsibility. Since most authors don't have an in with the book reviewers at the New York Times, they've come to appreciate their new best friends: the book bloggers.

Book bloggers love to review books. They also love to interview authors. Many bloggers specialize in a genre or age group of book, making them go-to sources for parents or kids who are hungry for a particular type of read. And because savvy bloggers link to each other and to writing- and reading-related websites, their reviews spread quickly through cyberspace. The best part is that authors can contact book bloggers directly, send them review copies, and even set up "blog tours" of interviews around their book's pub date.

Still not convinced? Read author Miriam Gershow's account of why book bloggers became the best marketing outlet for her first book, even after receiving good print reviews. Then start following bloggers who review the types of books that you write. To locate bloggers, go to places like KidLitosphere Central, the children's literature blogs on JacketFlap, and About.com's list of children's books blogs. Or simply type "Children's Book Review Blogs" into your search engine and start following the links. Post comments, research each book blog's review policies, and get your list ready for your own market blitz when your book comes out.

Interested in learning how to write a book and send it to children’s book publishers? Come on over to The CBI Clubhouse for audios, videos, insider writing tips and much, much more!

If you still think you can successfully sell your book without any kind of online presence, it's time to face reality. Even the big publishers, who have historically been slow to embrace technological change, are relying more and more on online marketing that goes far beyond throwing a book trailer on YouTube. The good news: most electronic marketing is inexpensive or free, and anyone can do it. So if you're a self-published author or a small press, first read what the big guys are doing, then adapt their ideas into what works for you. With some creativity and vision, your online platform can go head-to-head with the corporate giants.

More confirmation of the seismic changes in publishing, this time from Barnes & Noble VP Marc Parrish at the recent GigaOm Big Data conference in New York:

"The book business is changing more radically now, and quicker, than movies or music or newspapers have, because we're doing it in a matter of months…In [the] next 24 months is when this business will totally shift."

B&N predicts that, for 2011, the company will sell 18 million ereaders. That's compared with the 900,000 they sold in 2009.

For more on Parrish's comments, go to http://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/barnes-and-noble-claims-ebooks-will-reign-supreme-in-2-years/