Any advice on landing an agent? I've been at it for a year and I'm getting discouraged. Here's a review I received recently. Chief Louise Consola, the chief of police for the idyllic town of Beaumont, Massachusetts, must unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of one of her best friends. As she unearths clues, it becomes clear that her friend’s death is part of a terrible secret that has been kept hidden for decades. Can Louise put an end to the evil that ravages her town and still protect those who have carried the secret? And can a town ever be washed clean from its terrible sin? (Summary via Amazon) A Run of a River by Rick Collins is a suspense novel……BOY is it !!! I’ll admit I didn’t read the summary of the book before I started reading it and quite frankly, it wouldn’t have mattered. Reading the little summary about the book does not, in any way, shape or form, prepare the reader for what they are about to get lost in. And when you start reading A Run of a River you are going to be completely lost in the story…..so much that everything around you will no longer exist. As long as the book is opened and you are reading the words, you will be under a spell. There will be no stopping it’s powerful hold on you until you get to the end, close the book and sit back. You are hanging out in Beaumont Massachusetts, a small town, with Police Captain Louise Consola who after the events of one day her town and her life are turned upside down. On the day long time baseball and basketball boys coach, Jack Monroe, is labeled a town hero and given the key to the city by the Mayor, a close friend of Louise and her husband commits suicide. As Louise and her husband Hank try to come to terms with Ken’s sudden death, Hank is in a car accident that turns out to not be an accident. It seems that a lot of people in this little town are hanging on to some deep, dark secrets that are starting to destroy them. Hank is carrying around a lot of guilt after Ken’s suicide and it puts him in the hospital. The Mayor is also hiding a lot of secrets that could destroy him and everything he has built of himself. While Louise tries to help her husband, she learns that some of the secrets if they came out could destroy her town. She is torn between doing what is right for the town but bad for it’s residents or turning a blind eye and letting things slowly destroy the ones she loves. Readers will be on the edge of their seats reading A Run of A River. Rick Collins writes in such a way that you will feel like you are right there along side the people in this small town. You will feel like you are caught in this web of secrets with them and will feel for Ken, Hank, Mickey and the rest of the boys coached by Jack Monroe. You will want to see justice done and stop the pain that is like a black cloud over Beaumont. And you will be in complete shock when you see how things turn out !!!

Hi everyone! I dabbled in writing fiction a few years ago and just couldn't pin down my genre nor dedicate the time to it because I run my own business (and had a million other excuses LOL). I'm starting fresh and feeling really determined to stick with it and finish my first novel quickly.

Would love to connect with folks here that want to encourage and help hold each other accountable, so any advice on where to start with that would be appreciated. Excited to be here!

Hello! I just joined (to be specific, probably only 20 minutes ago) and am excited! I didn't even know SavvyAuthors existed. I randomly found it through a classmate's website! It's amazing how you can randomly find things on the internet...

I love how comprehensive this site is and how there is so much here for writers! I'm looking forward to payday so I can upgrade my account. Only 16 weeks (but who's counting?) until I'm finished with my writing degree, so I'm excited to have time freed up to take writing classes. Anyhow, I am going to start working my way through the site (and finding things to read, woo!) and just wanted to poke my head in here and wave.

~Jen

How do you control the tags that show up next to your name when you post in a forum? I just posted in a class I'm in, and I get the "Going Indie" tag next to my "Premium Member" tag. I'm not an indie published author, so not sure where that's coming from. I searched the help and couldn't find anything. Went through every setting I could find in my account, still nothing. I noticed some people have other tags like "Ask me about my book on submission."

My name is Priscilla, and I am just finishing a final edit on my sci-fi romance and trying to make some connections and get some advice. Thanks for being here.

Hello! I have read that writers should have a marketing plan as agents/editors may ask for it as part of your pitch package. Two questions: 1) is this true and 2) if so, is this a marketing plan specifically for the book you're pitching, or for yourself as an author?

Thanks in advance!!

Or, can I at least delete it?

I just finished a new lecture series called Fiction Writing Workshop for Kids. It has three story ideas in it and each story idea is expanded to show kids how to create a story. It uses color-coded text boxes to focus the kids creativity and collect their ideas.
The regular price is $19.99 but it's on sale now. Use this link to take advantage of the discounted price.
Fiction Writing Workshop For Kids
Hey! You never know when you'll need something like this to keep the kids occupied.

Hello all. I needed a kick in the pants to get writing again, and rejoining this site is the perfect motivation.
I'm going to read a bit on the forums to catch up on news, and all the changes.

I write romantic suspense. My first book was traditionally published by a small publishing house, and I've just got the rights back. I'm going to self pub that book (once I've changed the cover etc) and I know I have a lot to learn about how to do that, especially the tech.

I've got another book finished that I'd love to submit to the critique match, but I can't seem to find a link for where to sign up for that. I've read the FAQ's on the Indie thread, but didn't see a link. Does anyone here know how I should go about this?

Thrilled to be back at SA!
Sandra Clarke
w/a SJ Clarke

Hi,
My name is Jillian and I have just joined the group today. I am in the final edits of my YA Fantasy novel that I co-wrote with my mom. Would love to make new friends and share feedback for sweetheart pitch/query/2 page synopsis for upcoming author mentor match.

Welp, I was bored this am and now we can post giphys!
choose "..." from the menu above
then choose "giphys" from the dropdown
Search for the giphy you want!

Every writer hopes to find one. They're gold-plated grammar ninjas. They can spot a plot hole from their desk a half a world away, and they have the common sense to give you the bad news gently. They're hard to find. They must have an understanding of the genre you write in. They should cringe when they sniff passive voice, and rejoice when they've read five pages of your manuscript and forgotten to edit because the book was just SO. DARN. GOOD.

We're launching the IndieCafe's latest new feature: Crit Partner Matching and offering this great service free of change to all Premium Members for SIX MONTHS!

How this works:

1. This Monday all Premium Members will receive an email with access to the Crit Partner Matching preferences panel to input your preferences. (Not a Premium Member? We can fix that!)
2. You will answer a few simple questions and indicate that you want to be matched!
3. On Sunday, or as soon as we get 30 people in the match pool, we'll run our match program with our specially designed match algorithm.

Every two weeks we'll run the match program and match you with a like-minded author!

Check out the full FAQ

Just an FYI, we rolled out a bunch of new features this past month or so. One is that you can now see all the reviews for our instructors. These are shown on each class that instructor teaches in a separate tab.

Let us know what you think!

I always figure that January is the most motivated I am going to be to meet my goals for the year. To try to leverage that, I spend a lot of time in January setting up my planner, reworking my calendar, and moving planning postets up and down my walls. What do you guys do to set your new year off right?

So I finished another book, The Taming of Delaney Fortune - A HQ Special Edition. Now I'm onto Cowboy Seal Homecoming. It starts off with three Navy Seals who are recovering from getting wounded - and they're going to heal while working on a ranch, and one of them falls in love. Can't get much better than that.

What is everyone else reading this week? I noticed a bunch of sci-fi readers...where are my romance readers at? Got any good cowboy romance recommendations?

We're planning a Feb pitchfest like we usually do. So often some of the folks who pitch do so without a completed mss. So I was thinking of a funny way to get the point across that you really have to be done with a book to pitch it. It's just not fair to agents and editors if your book is not done and not fair to you, as well.

So I made this, what do you think?

Me me! I am!
Anyone else writing today?

Has anyone read this book? I'm about halfway through, and though I'd already learned several of his points through Facebook Groups, it's a really interesting read. He also has a ton more books out for writers. Write to Market, Ads for Authors...

Any suggestion on which book of his I should devour next?

If you like cowboy romance, you'll like this book. I absolutely loved Jaime Dodge's character, and she had a fabulous character arc. The hero's character arc was less dramatic, but that was okay because the heroine changed so much. This was a fantastic read. Just wanted to throw this book recommendation out there!

And it's even worse, it's the friday before US Thanksgiving! What are your weekend plans? What are your WRITING plans to make it through next week while keeping your wordcount up?

Angie's Diary published an article of mine. You can read it here: What Happens After NaNoWriMo? | Angie's Diary

I was doing research for the class I am teaching now and I stumbled over some basic research on changes in social media in 2019 and anticipated for 2020.

I follow several social media guys on Twitter, MattNavarra reported (and Social Media Today publised) that in October Facebook is changing how they calculate reach. (and not for the increase) so we should see our reach drop. Nice eh? Nothing like making us buy more ads.



So I looked at Savvy's and yep, we dropped 26% since October!!!
And we had a freaking PITCHFEST, which always boosts our niumbers.
Anyone else see their reach plummet?