Scrivenings Press owner Linda Fulkerson has teamed with highly respected experts in publishing to give writers a guided tour through the land of publishing. We know agents, editors, and publishers guard the path to publication. Each one is a barrier between us and a publishing contract unless we know what they really want. This book gives writers a behind-the-scenes peek at how to win the heart of each type of publishing professional. In fact, Getting Past the Publishing Gatekeepers won’t just give us a peek—it will give us a guided tour. In this book, four publishing professionals—an agent, a publisher, an editor, and an influencer—share what it takes to unlock each “gate” within the publishing industry. This fantastic book is available in paperback and Kindle format on Amazon beginning October 11, 2022.
Linda answered some fun questions for us:
What is your superpower?
I am an excellent typist. 😉
What is one thing we would never guess about you?
I was a Harley Honey for a short time—rode with an ex-boyfriend—a LONG time ago, lol.
If you could have an unlimited supply of one thing for the rest of your life, what would you like?
Gasoline (or diesel, if hubby buys a different truck). We love to travel, and our truck gets about 6-1/2 mpg while pulling our 27-foot camper, so having an unlimited supply of fuel would be awesome!
What are you working on right now?
I’m finishing the final parts of the Gatekeepers book—glossary of terms and index as well as putting the final touches on the book’s landing page (publishinggatekeepers.com). These tasks had better be done by the time this interview is published. 😉
What are your next writing projects?
I’ve begun another nonfiction book, titled Marketing for Christian Writers, and I’ve been discussing this project with a potential co-author, who will likely work with me on this. Hopefully we can get this written and published in 2023. I’m also working on a nonfiction book titled EDIT is a Four-letter Word: A Proven Four-step Self-editing Process to Prepare Your Fiction Manuscript for Publication, to be released some time during 2023. For fiction, I’m working on a timeslip novel inspired by summers spent on my grandparents’ dairy farm. A mysterious death from the past will affect the life of a present-day character. (No, we didn’t have any mysterious deaths at the farm, but it will be the book’s main setting.) The working title is The Piemaker.
How do you relax and recharge when you step away from writing?
There’s a lake just over an hour from our house where we camp at least a couple times a year—usually once in the fall and once in the spring. The campsites have no electricity or water hookups, but our camper’s batteries and holding tanks allow for about a 3-night stay. Oh, and there’s no cell service, so I can’t use my hotspot to connect to the Internet. We go off grid while we’re there. It’s awesome!
What’s your best advice for other writers?
Read. Read what is selling well in your genre. Read in other genres. And don’t just read for enjoyment—examine the sentence structure. The word choices. Study how authors of great books describe characters, setting. How do they start a scene? How do they end a chapter? What makes their book stand out from others? From yours? Take notes. Emulate them.
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