The Renegade Writer Blog

Hilarious! Dennis Cass should be in standup (maybe he is?) … his timing is perfect and he’s 50x funnier than Jerry Seinfeld. My favorite line: “You know what’s funny about the Oprah question … I would have just called you and said ‘I’m going on Oprah.’ I wouldn’t have let you come to me.” [db]
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Today both Gawker and GalleyCat have links to a YouTube video of disgraced memoir writer Margaret Seltzer talking about her childhood spent running with (cough) LA’s most brutal gangs. Obviously this was taped before her real-life sister blew the whistle on her. It’s fascinating to watch: the accent, the stories, the emotion — the chutzpah! […]

Thanks to a post in today’s GalleyGat, I spent the last hour reading the details of an angry romance author’s vendetta against the writer of a (gasp!) 3-star amazon.com review. I read the review — since taken down by amazon.com presumably at the angry author’s request — and it’s fairly pleasant, nothing that would get […]

I started my RW Makeover about a year ago with the goal to become a book dork for life. Since then, I’ve written a book (which is now up for pre-order on Amazon!), bought a house, written a lot about books and spent a long time thinking about what it is I want to do […]

Caroline asks: Hello! I am new to this whole freelancing thing-a-ma-jig (yes, that it is a made up word), and I have a question about electronic clips. Now, being the good little renegade writer that I am, I have been working on putting together queries that I would like to email. I have several that […]

Kayleen asks: Hi! I’m an experienced non-fiction magazine article writer. I’ve published 1,500 articles, many of those in recent years focusing on travel. I’m ready to attempt to write a book and have thought I’d enjoy writing a travel book, perhaps on the Bed and Breakfast Inns in my state.
But I don’t know if that […]

If you’re wondering how on earth you’ll ever score a book deal, check out Gina Trapani’s tale of how she went to blogging mistress of Lifehacker to published author. A lot of journalists and writers pooh-pooh blogs, and I’m not sure why. My guess is that they don’t read a lot of them, and what […]

Victoria writes: “I have a pretty simple question - what do you guys recommend as the best book for info about writing a non-fiction book proposal? There are so many out there, it is hard to know which one to spend your money on and to use as a formal guide while constructing your proposal.”
Good […]

Author extraordinaire Jennifer Lawler is introducing a 6-week course on writing a winning book proposal. In Jennifer’s course, which starts on November 13, you’ll learn how to:

Identify a salable book idea
Hook an editor with your book description
Develop an irresistible outline
Create the kind of platform agents and editors want to see
Develop promotion and marketing ideas for […]

Then head over to Lynne Scanlon’s a/k/a The Wicked Witch of Publishing blog and read — nay, study — what she writes about book publishing, networking, and why you should get off your ass more often. Her advice is dead-on. Why do I know this? Well, it worked for me. Case in point: it’s how […]