René O'Deay gBlog

I got the Joomla blues.

My website Tales of King Tut, is so messed up.

What makes Tales of King Tut: Sun Child, Prince of Egypt, different from other novels?

This fascinating and tragic character captured the world’s imagination when his tomb in the Valley of the Kings was discovered in 1922 and still continues to entrance almost 100 years later.

 Ready to give up on that 'praised CMS'. The newest latest versions are even worse. So many options for just about everything, can't find the way to make it work easily.




René

Query Tracker - Free Literary Agent Query Tracking Tool:

Welcome to the grand opening of Query Tracker
A Free service which allows authors to find agents and track the status of their query submissions.

Patrick McDonald has just introduced a fabulous new online tool for authors in search of an agent! And it's free!

I just found it last night, joined, and started a search for agents to query about my novel, Sun Child, Prince of Egypt. I am so impressed with its versatility that I had to stop and share it with all my friends and visitors.

If you are an author in search of an agent, this is "Business at the Speed of Thought!"

Besides helping you find an agent who deals in your genre, there are links to their websites, tracking of your queries, more.

And as Patrick himself says in his intro:

Then the real power of this website hit me. With all this information, and with enough users on the site and contributing, we could take a lot of the guess work out of query writing. What if you could see samples of the last ten queries which a given agent had read and liked? What if every user posted his or her query letters, then linked them to the agent where they were sent and indicated what response, if any, the letter received? With this information it would be possible to see the types of queries the agent liked, and either modify your letter accordingly, or move on to a different agent who has shown interest in work like yours. Now, I felt I was on to something. I hadn’t been this excited since the first time I wrote, “The End.”

So, the more users the better for everyone. Information shared can help skyrocket the success of authors' queries.
Personally I'm thrilled. I was not looking forward to searching for an agent, but this tool will take much of the pain out of the effort.

Check it out, boys and girls, I think you will be as thrilled as I am.

René

For Authors & Publishers- The Sad Truth is:

For superstar authors, the publicity machine runs nonstop. Lesser-known writers hit the road and promote their own books. Never mind that they may have better things to do -- like write:

"Alas, the publishers of the estimated 55,000 books that come out every year in the United States must count on lesser-known authors to do more and more of the promoting of a book, from hiring publicists to setting up and paying for tours. Many publishers even expect authors to submit their marketing strategy as part of their proposal. For authors, finding readers for a book is often harder than writing it was." Super Star Authors

Many authors have taken to the internet, and besides creating their own websites, are blogging, posting articles on various sites, and using MySpace to promote themselves and their books.

One of my MySpace friends, Alison Mackie, is about to set off an a book tour herself to promote her fabulous novel, The Gypsy Chronicles, as she says:

"The Gypsy Chronicles is a bedtime story
for grownups and tonight, my friends,
the subject is Love!"

And all Alison's reviewers agree.
You can find her book on her Official Gypsy Chronicles Website.
Or at Amazon, and see the reviews:
The Gypsy Chronicles : The Gypsy Has Three Truths

But for Flamenco, authentic Gypsy music, go to Alison's MySpace where she will also be posting her book tour schedule.

Look for Alison and her Gypsy Caravan near you. Alison's Muse is miraculous and her promotional efforts with her romantic novel are sure to be entertaining.