Kent and I just got back from the London Book Fair, where we met with co-agents, scouts, and editors from all over the world...and boy, did they clue us in to some interesting trends.| neonliterary.substack.com
What can the past tell us about the publishing industry of 2025?| How to Glow in the Dark
Originally published in January, this essay has come back to me many times this week as I watch the immiseration of my hometown from abroad.| neonliterary.substack.com
How a movie, a TV show, or even a cocktail can sharpen your pitch| How to Glow in the Dark
Among authors, I often encounter this anxiety: "Does my agent prioritize their in-house relationships over my independent needs?" My answer: maybe? But probably not.| How to Glow in the Dark
What do casinos and publishers have in common?| neonliterary.substack.com
Age-related anxieties are among the most common I field from people trying to sell a book. Here's my...uh...let's call it vaguely Buddhist counsel.| How to Glow in the Dark
Publishing is in the middle of a survival performance--a spiraling black cloud, beautiful and mysterious and pathetic all at once--and I can't look away.| neonliterary.substack.com
Reassurance seeking is addictive: it wastes your time, damages your craft, dims your light, and makes you feel progressively worse with time. So why is it so tempting to indulge?| neonliterary.substack.com
Editors create profit and loss sheets to quantify authors' platform and market in the present and make projections about the future. Our job is to make THEIR job easy.| neonliterary.substack.com
Hard truths about the industry support you want vs. what you might actually need.| How to Glow in the Dark
Trust in the spookiest parts of yourself; stop trying to understand them.| How to Glow in the Dark
If editors are interested in your book, they're going to want to meet you--and they might or might not still be interested afterward. (BUT NO PRESSURE, JANINE.) Here's how to prep.| neonliterary.substack.com
Fan letters aren't just meaningful to their recipients--they unlock seismic changes in your confidence and career.| How to Glow in the Dark
Oh no, you're climbing to a new career high--better go ahead and set the airplane on fire!| neonliterary.substack.com
Various ways of answering the most painful (and common) question I get from the #amwriting community.| neonliterary.substack.com
Publishing, books, life, celebrity gossip: ask me and each other whatever you'd like.| How to Glow in the Dark
Where authors should spend their conflict capital--and where they really, really shouldn't.| How to Glow in the Dark
Did you flame out on submission? Did your publisher decline your option? Did both of these things happen? Here’s what to do when your career seems to have stalled harder than Air France 447.| neonliterary.substack.com
40 years alive, 20 years an agent, 5 years writing "Glow:" it's time to stop and look back.| How to Glow in the Dark
Trim, thickness, layout: how publishers make all those big, hard choices in book design (and who makes them, exactly)| neonliterary.substack.com
Everything you need to know about the most confusing, exasperating, difficult, painful topic in book publicity.| neonliterary.substack.com
The vibes at this year's London Book Fair were strangely crepuscular—gentle, searching—and I wasn't sure whether to feel hope or sorrow. No matter what, though, some fascinating trends are in bloom.| neonliterary.substack.com
