A Writer's pick me up - Jillian Medoff: Turn around champion

Jillian Medoff's experience would have to be deserving of 'classic' status as a turning of a sink hole to success story!
There are so many tales of woe ranging from "The dog ate my manuscript" to having your book accepted only to have  the publisher go bankrupt, to finding there was  a story uncannily like yours out there, released same time as yours but with a big budget campaign to support it and the ultimate ARRGH! The  publisher turns out to be scammy. Everyone has their own personal horror story. So this blog from Query Tracker  on Jillian Medoff's turn around is the sort of thing  we creatives need - a virtual shot in the arm!

The history of literature has numbers of these  'turn around stories'.  "Lord of the Rings" was rejected many, many time before finding a home.
 "Harry Potter" was passed over by  12 publishers.
"Lord of the Flies"  got 21 rejections before William Golding found  an editor who 'got' his book!
Jerzy Kosinski's   extraordinary experiment with his own bestseller, "Steps" is a frightening reality check and  at the same time a jab  with a cattle prod reminder to 'persist, persist, persist' and never give up!

The wonderful and the terrible thing about the arts is  that it is so sensitive to the whims of personal taste. This  means that what is good may not immediately be recognised as such and  what is bad may become popular. BUT it also means you are in there with a chance because  someone, somewhere is sure to LOVE your work!  It  Tolkien, Golding, Nabokov and Rowling, to name a few, had given up, our literature would be  so very much the poorer!

Read more extraordinary stories  of  how authors turned  'NO!" in to "YE$" on One Hundred Famous Rejections. Read and be encouraged!

Great sites to warn the unseasoned of what to look out for on the road to publication include -
http://www.sfwa.org/for-authors/writer-beware/ and http://pred-ed.com/

QueryTracker Blog: Jillian Medoff: From Flattened to Fabulous

QueryTracker Blog: Jillian Medoff: From Flattened to Fabulous: By Sarah Pinneo  |  @SarahPinneo If you stick around the Query Tracker community long enough, you’ll hear many a story of dogged persist...

More brilliant work from a Master Illustrator - Bernhard Oberdieck - Illustration: E-Book - Story Map Cover

Bernhard Oberdieck - Illustration: E-Book - Story Map Cover: Nun ist es soweit. Mein erstes E-Book App ist im Apple App Store erhältlich. Es ist zunächst das Grimm Märchen "Die Bremer Stadtmusika...

This stunning book is also in hardcopy as well!
To read more about Bernhad's wonderful work, read my interview with him on my blog -http://jrpoulter.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/bernhard-oberdieck-leading-german-illustrator-creator-of-childrens-classics/
and my review of his book collaboration, "Cat's Concert" -  http://jrpoulter.wordpress.com/2009/05/20/cats-concert-latest-modern-classic-by-bernhard-oberdieck-to-hit-the-shelves/

Enjoy! :)

A new take on the 'sea-change' theme - Black Cow

Black Cow by Magdalena Ball
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Maggie Ball’s Black Cow is an honest take on mid life crisis and the need to redefine who we are and why the #@&! we are here anyway’.  Maggie’s pull no punches, no holds barred approach leaves you feeling you have looked like peeping tom’s over the shoulders of her characters into their inner sanctums  and watched them sink, swim and drag themselves ashore spitting weed. This is an honest to goodness look at ‘sea-change’ warts and all for which Maggie is to be  roundly congratulated!


View all my reviews

How to convert Kindle files to Epub [by Hettie Ashwin]

~PEN TO PAPER~: How to convert kindle AWZ files to Epub for generi...: There are so many readers on the market and so many files to choose from. But what if you want to buy that book on Amazon and it is for kind...

Kathy's Library: All in the Woods (Book Review)

Kathy's Library: All in the Woods (Book Review): Title: All in the Woods Author: J R Poulter Illustrator: Linda Gunn Source: From author for review Goodreads Summary: 'All in the Woo...

Buy it on Amazon and BookDepository.com