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On Friday, we featured an interview with National Novel Writing Month founder Chris Baty. Today’s the last day to sign up for the even so I suggest you head over to their website soon. Baty wrote No Plot? No Problem! as a companion piece to writing a novel in a month. In the book, Baty [...]

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This is what makes people question the media these days… Last Thursday, The Christian Science Monitor ran an article on the nature of self-publishing. The article, that interviews a self-published author, quotes a couple of industry experts, and details the obstacles that these authors face. My question is why anyone would consider this new information [...]

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Ron Charles points out in the Washington Post that vampire stories are old, over-done, and generally worn out. He describes the decline of the nosferatu by writing “At this late date can anyone draw more blood from the story? Buffy gave up the ghost in 2003. The WB drove a stake through the heart of [...]

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I recently spoke to an aspiring author who was obsessed with developing his “signature style.” This well-intentioned person knew that to make it in publishing, you have to present something different, something special. He kept referring to this something as his signature style. I suppose he saw it as his version of the secret sauce. [...]

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Publishers Weekly reported that Stephen King has agreed to write a graphic novel as his next installment in the Dark Tower series. The project is scheduled to be published first as a comic book periodical by Marvel Comics in the spring of 2006 and then released as a hardcover edition in the fall of that [...]

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Our patron saint John, whose battles with wild cats in his neighborhood have reached Caddyshack proportions, will enjoy this one… Nina Malkin sold a manuscript entitled Trap! Neuter! Return! A Feral Family Saga to Ann Treistman at The Lyons Press. The book describes the years the author has spent in Brooklyn dealing with a pack [...]

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Bookninja picked up this great article about the precarious circumstances that currently bedevil university presses. And the article asks the toughest question: should a book that can’t manage to sell 500 copies even be published in the first place?

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I keep coming across news and books by UK publisher Cannongate these days. Back in September, I discussed an amazingly artful limited edition of Robert Sabbag’s Snowblind. That rare book was published by Rebel, Inc, an imprint of Cannongate. And recently the publisher has been making the news for a series of books where contemporary [...]

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A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that Collins McCormick Literary Agency was disbanding. The news at the time was that David McCormick was leaving the firm, that the split was amicable, and that Nina Collins would continue under her own name. The agency was home to authors such as Elizabeth Kostova, Matthew Sharpe, Julie [...]

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McAdam/Cage has been one of my favorite publishers for some time now. And the good news out of San Francisco is that they recently re-launched their corporate website. The new design looks great and the awesome catalog is presented to show all their fantastic books. Congratulations guys. Very well done.

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Longtime readers of Slushpile know that one of my biggest irritations is when editors (fiction or nonfiction), agents, journals, and publishers don’t respond to queries. Mistakes do happen and sometimes things fall through the cracks. I know some agents who haven’t responded to me about various submissions but in these cases I know that these [...]

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Anne Rice, the foremost chronicler of vampires and the children of the night, the lady who wrote softcore S&M books under a psuedonym, has been converted. Her new novel, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt is scheduled for release November 1. The book is about Jesus at age 7, and it’s narrated by Christ himself. [...]

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