Agent Spotlight: Analieze Cervantes Interview and Query Critique Giveaway

Today I’m thrilled to have agent Analieze Cervantes here. She is an associate literary agent at Harvey Klinger Literary Agency.

Status Update on 9/14/2024: Analieze is now at Rees Literary Agency and is currently closed to submissions. Please check the agency website to find out when she reopens to submissions and for her submission guidelines.

Status Update on 10/25/2024: Analieze is not listed as an agent at Rees Literary Agency. Her Manuscript Wish List page says she's currently on hiatus as of 2/2025 to focus on her family.

Hi Analieze! Thanks so much for joining us.

About Analieze: 

1. Tell us how you became an agent, how long you’ve been one, and what you’ve been doing as an agent.

Great question—I knew I wanted to be a part of the publishing industry whether if it was to be an editor, literary agent or writer (which is a goal sometime in the future), but I didn’t know everything I know now. So when I attended a WD conference in NY for the first time after graduating from college, the idea of being part of the publishing industry solidified because it was just a magical place with people who shared the same passion. So the question was…how do I get there? After so many applications to different jobs and receiving nothing, I became an intern at a NYC Literary Agency. I was there for a year before joining The Harvey Klinger Literary Agency.

About the Agency:

2. Share a bit about your agency and what it offers to its authors.

The Harvey Klinger Literary Agency has been representing quality fiction and non fiction since 1977 from MG all the way to Adult. The agency has an eye for spotting talent, we pride ourselves on our strong editorial skills, unparalleled relations with all major publishers, and a unique collaborative work environment. We adopt a hands-on, personal approach with every author we take on, focusing not just on their books, but on their careers.

What She’s Looking For:

3. What age groups do you represent—picture books, MG, and/or YA? What genres do you represent and what are you looking for in submissions for these genres?

I am looking to represent Picture Books, Graphic Novels (just recently opened), MG, YA, and Adult fiction. The genres include: Contemporary, Romance, Sci-fi, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller (I’m craving a great thriller and mystery book), Crime Fiction, and looking for illustrators too! I’m especially looking for BIPOC and LGBTQ voices.

4.  Is there anything you would be especially excited to seeing in the genres you are interested in?

Mystery and Thrillers! I haven’t been getting a lot of in those genres and would love to see more! The more, the merrier :)

What She Isn’t Looking For:

5. What types of submissions are you not interested in?

•           Fantasy

•           Short story collections

•           Inspirational works including religious overtones

•           Erotica

•           Non-Fiction

•           Memoir

•           Horror (please nothing with Zombies)

•           Westerns

•           Novellas

•           Anything Political

•           Poetry

•           Screenplays

 

Agent Philosophy:

6. What is your philosophy as an agent both in terms of the authors you want to work with and the books you want to represent?

First and foremost, the books I’m looking to represent are books that connect with me on a deeper level. Am I still thinking about those books even after turning the last page? Characters that I remember and keep me glued to the pages since the very beginning. Time shouldn’t exist when I read a manuscript.

As far as authors, I am looking for clients who are professional on and off social media, their passion, knowing that they are writing other books and are learning the industry along side me. A collaborative partnership that will last for the years to come. I’m here to build my career alongside theirs.

Editorial Agent:

7. Are you an editorial agent? If so, what is your process like when you’re working with your authors before submitting to editors?

Yes, I am an editorial agent. I usually go through three rounds of edits, focusing on the character development, pacing, etc. and whether or not the overall story comes together prior to submitting a project. In some cases, the process takes longer just depending on the amount of edits.

Query Methods and Submission Guidelines: (Always verify before submitting)

8. How should authors query you and what do you want to see with the query letter?

They should query me through my QM link on the agency website. I want to see three things: the hook (pitch), the book (what it’s about), and the cook (about the author and not necessarily their publications unless they have some). I want to see why they are specifically querying me and the person they are.

9.  Do you have any specific dislikes in query letters or the first pages submitted to you?

One of the things, I dislike in letters is when the author doesn’t address me and tells me about why we would be a good fit, but not telling anything about the book. On occasion, I get authors who talk about multiple books in one submission which shows me that they didn’t follow the submission guidelines.

Response Time:

10. What’s your response time to queries and requests for more pages of a manuscript?

Queries are given a response time of a week. Partials are requested within a month/few weeks and are given a response time of a week from requesting. However, if I am still considering the project then it takes me a month or two to decide or request the full. As far as fulls, I do take about 2-3 months if not more to respond back.

Self-Published and Small Press Authors:

11.  Are you open to representing authors who have self-published or been published by smaller presses? What advice do you have for them if they want to try to find an agent to represent them?

Yes I am. However, sometimes they need to show us that they have sold a number of books if they’ve been published by a small press. My advice is to keep trying and never give up. Let the agent know that you want to go off into bigger and better things—that you’re ready.

I am not open to authors who are querying an already self-published book though.

12. With all the changes in publishing—self-publishing, hybrid authors, more small publishers—do you see the role of agents changing at all? Why?

I think we will have a lot of avenues to help our clients. Our role is going to be a lot more challenging because we’d need to keep learning and make sure we are successful as agents.

Clients:

13. Who are some of the authors you represent?

Authors include: Dylan Wiseman, Kami Bratten, Jenna Grinstead, Jenissa Michelle, Clint Hanthorn, Sofia Pileggi, Kerisa Greene and Amanda Badillo/Jesse Chen (co-agenting with my colleague Jennifer Herrington).

Illustrators include: Amanda Morrow, Kerisa Greene, and Devika Oza.

Interviews and Guest Posts:

14. Please share the links to any interviews and guest posts you think would be helpful to writers interested in querying you.

https://www.manuscriptwishlist.com/mswl-post/analieze-cervantes/

https://kathytemean.wordpress.com/2021/02/05/january-agent-of-the-month-analieze-cervantes/

https://analiezecervantes.com

Update 1/18/2023:

Interview at Writers Digest (12/2021)

Publishers Marketplace

Links and Contact Info:

15. Please share how writers should contact you to submit a query and your links on the Web.

https://www.harveyklinger.com

https://querymanager.com/query/AnaliezeCervantes

Additional Advice:

16. Is there any other advice you’d like to share with aspiring authors that we haven’t covered?

My advice to you: don't give up, ask questions, learn the industry, attend conferences, join support groups and really understand the business in the best way you can. There are so many people who are willing to help you.

Thanks for sharing all your advice, Analieze.

Analieze is generously offering a query critique to one lucky winner. To enter, all you need to do is be a follower (via the follower gadget, email, or bloglovin’ on the right sidebar) and leave a comment through July 31st.  If your e-mail is not on your Google Profile, you must leave it in the comments to enter the contest. If you do not want to enter the contest, that's okay. Just let me know in the comments.

If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog, mention this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry. This is an international giveaway.

Profile Details:
Last Updated: 1/18/2023
Agent Contacted for Review? Yes
Last Reviewed By Agent? 7/14/2021

Have any experience with this agent? See something that needs updating? Please leave a comment or e-mail me at natalieiaguirre7@gmail.com

Note: These agent profiles and interviews presently focus on agents who accept children's fiction. Please take the time to verify anything you might use here before querying an agent. The information found here is subject to change.

 

 

 

 

Debut Author Interview: Cliff Burke and An Occasionally Happy Family Giveaway

Happy Monday Everyone! Today I’m excited to have debut author Cliff Burke here to share about his MG contemporary, An Occasionally Happy Family. While the story sounds like it has its sad moments, it also sounds funny. I could use a funny book this summer and am excited to read it.

Here’s a blurb from Goodreads:

Gordon Korman meets The Great Outdoors in this funny and moving debut about a boy who goes on a disastrous family vacation (sweltering heat! bear chases!) that ends with a terrible surprise: his dad's new girlfriend.

There are zero reasons for Theo Ripley to look forward to his family vacation. Not only are he, sister Laura, and nature-obsessed Dad going to Big Bend, the least popular National Park, but once there, the family will be camping. And Theo is an indoor animal. It doesn’t help that this will be the first vacation they’re taking since Mom passed away.
 
Once there, the family contends with 110 degree days, wild bears, and an annoying amateur ornithologist and his awful teenage vlogger son. Then, Theo’s dad hits him with a whopper of a surprise: the whole trip is just a trick to introduce his secret new girlfriend.  
 
Theo tries to squash down the pain in his chest. But when it becomes clear that this is an auditioning-to-be-his-stepmom girlfriend, Theo must find a way to face his grief and talk to his dad before his family is forever changed.

 Hi Cliff! Thanks so much for joining us.

 1. Tell us about yourself and how you became a writer.

Hi Natalie! Thanks for having me on your site. I started writing in school and was always excited whenever we moved into creative writing in elementary/middle school. I wrote a lot of baseball stories, fantasy tales that involved Santa delivering presents every day, the story of a monster that took over the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because it didn’t rock enough. But when I got older and continued studying English in college, the focus shifted to literary analysis. I followed course and stopped creative writing, focused on trying to deconstruct Kafka and modernist poetry. 

It wasn’t until more recently, when I started teaching 6-7^th grade writing, that I thought I might have the ability to write a full-length book that could be published. I was inspired by my students’ creative energy and how involved they got during our writing units. They brought back my own joy for writing, and I began drafting short sketches and stories to serve as mentor texts for assignments, mostly just trying to get laughs (while still teaching the fundamentals of building characters, dialogue punctuation, setting the scene, etc.), and went from writing short sketches for my classes to drafting a book.

2. I bet younger kids would love a story about getting a Christmas present every day. Where did you get the idea for An Occasionally Happy Family?

There are a number of things that inspired me, but the most direct inspiration was a trip I took with two friends through three National Parks. As we were hiking, we kept passing traveling families where one of the parents would be really excited and trying to pump everyone up, but everyone else was visibly bored, or exhausted, or tired of talking to each other.

So that was the first kernel – a family trip with a parent who is excited, and two kids who were maybe excited at some point but had reached the end of their appreciation for hiking in nature.

Originally, I intended the book to be a divorce story, with the father dragging his kids from one park to the next en route to California, where he would introduce his new girlfriend, but the more I wrote, the more I added more details of my own life into the story, and decided that it is more compelling as a chronicle of a bottled-up kid who wants to let out his feelings about the loss of his mother.

3. It sounds like you had to balance Theo dealing with grief and many funny moments on their trip. Share a bit how you decided to balance that out.

I started the book as pure comedy, so when the memories of Theo’s mother and the mixed family reaction to it started to bubble to the surface more in drafting, I tried to write them as directly and truthfully as I could, without thinking about whether they interrupted the flow of jokes/situations. So, I had a lot of chapters of comedic scenes and then some background and some more emotional scenes, but they weren’t really inter-mixed.

Once I started editing, I used the Gary Shandling method (which he shares in one of the various Larry Sanders Show DVD boxsets) of holding up each character’s response and asking - would they really say a laugh-line here or would they respond emotionally? By going through the draft specific to how Theo, and then Laura, and then their dad would respond to each scene, I was able to better mix the comedy with the characters emotions – and, specifically, the slow unraveling of Theo’s feelings about his mother.

4. The Gary Shandling method sounds like a good. Many writers, including me, have trouble writing funny stories. Does humor come easy to you? What tips do you have for those of us who would like to add this into our stories?

I think humor might come quicker to me as a life-long comedy fan and someone who has always been interested in figuring out how comedy works (see the Gary Shandling thing above –in additional to watching all 9 hour of DVD extras, I also watched the 4-hour documentary about his life and read the accompanying book of interviews – and this is just Gary Shandling). I’ve also dabbled in stand-up comedy over the years – winning a college comedy contest, performing in Hong Kong and around Cleveland – and that’s given me a good sense of what lines will get laughs. While there’s a big difference between performing comedy and having it sit on a page, I trust that if I read a line aloud and laugh, that it will also get a laugh (likely more muted, or just an acknowledged mental ‘ha’) from a reader.

As for tips, I think reading/watching/listening to things that are funny and paying attention to what, exactly, is making you laugh – wordplay, harsh truth, rat-a-tat language – is a good place to start. Some very funny writers I personally ‘studied’ while drafting – Elif Batuman, Charles Portis, John Swartzwelder. I also recommend the classic comedy-writer technique of asking someone to read something, sitting in the room next to them and listening for laughs. If so – victory. If not – keep workshopping.

5. Sounds like you’ve done a lot of the reading/watching/ listening to comedy and that it really helped you get how to write comedy. From reviews of your ARC, it sounds like you really have gotten the dialogue and voices of Theo and his sister right. Did that come naturally to you? Does it help that you teach middle grade social studies and writing?

Thank you! Teaching at the middle school level certainly helps with staying current in phrasing the language and judging what would be an authentic response for middle-school-aged kids in 2021. It can be difficult with slang and cultural references because they change so quickly from the time of drafting to the time of publication. I had to update some of the social media references during the last stages of copy edits to include Tik Tok and mention that everyone hates Snapchat now.

But a lot of the interplay between the siblings comes from my real-life sister and I as kids. Not the words, exactly, but some of the ways we used to annoy each other even if there was always an understanding that we wouldn’t go too far into out-right, bone-deep criticism.

6. I bet teaching middle graders has helped you get their voice and dialogue right. Jim McCarthy is your agent. How did he become your agent and what was your road to publication like?

Jim is a fantastic agent, and I was lucky to find him through a long query process. I used MSWL (Manuscript Wish List) as my guide for finding agents to query. I went through every single agent on the site, and slowly gathered a list of 100 MG agents who had an interest in comedy/contemporary stories. From there, I further narrowed to one agent per agency that I would query – which I read was a rule of thumb. However, Jim was the ONE exception to the rule. I already queried and was rejected by another agent at his agency, but waited seven months, sent to Jim and he called me within 12 days with an offer.

From there, we went back and forth on edits for about six months, improving the plot and characters. Then it went out to a batch of ten editors and one of those ten – Amy Cloud at HMH (now Clarions Books) – said yes. From there, Amy and I went back and forth a few times with more revisions and edits, and she really helped me to deepen and highlight the emotional aspects of the book and focus on Theo’s journey. In the end, there were 53 versions of the book on my computer, and I’m very grateful to Jim and Amy for guiding me through them all.

7. How did you initially celebrate the release of your book and market it both pre-and post-release? Is there anything you wish you would have done differently?

Release day was a normal school day for me, so I had my usual schedule, but got a lot of messages from friends, family, and parents of students throughout the day, which were very gratifying. Thanks to other authors online, I knew the best way to celebrate is with a cake and a little quiet time. After school I took some time going on a walk alone to reflect, and then returned home to a beautiful cake and even more kind notes and texts.

Pre-release, I reached out to my favorite local independent bookstore, Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park, to run a pre-order campaign. I make some stickers and Big Bend National Park pins for that and did a countdown on Instagram with a new detail about the book for a week before launch day. I’ve since been on a podcast, had several interviews (including this one – thank you), and a few virtual book-talks with schools running summer reading programs in Texas. I don’t know how much I’ve moved the sales needle through these, but have sincerely enjoyed all of them, and hope to do more – especially virtual or real school visits – in the near future.

 9. Celebrating with cake sounds awesome. Especially chocolate cake. What are you working on now?

I’ve been working diligently on a second middle grade novel over the past few months. Now that it’s summer and I’m off from teaching, I’ve been writing six days a week and am very near to the end. I don’t want to say too much about it in case it never comes out, but it is a similar mix of comedy and sadder familial elements which follows a twelve-year old boy who joins his best friend on a month-long farm-based summer program in rural France. There’s a chateau, goats, many cheeses, and other international travelers who figure prominently into the story. Paris also appears at the beginning and end, but I will say no more.

Thanks for sharing all your advice, Cliff. You can find Cliff at https://www.cliffburke.com/ or follow him on Instagram or Goodreads

Giveaway Details

Cliff has generously offered a hardback of An Occasionally Happy Family for a giveaway. To enter, all you need to do is be a follower of my blog (via the follower gadget, email, or bloglovin’ on the right sidebar) and leave a comment by July 24th. If your e-mail is not on your Google Profile, you must leave it in the comments to enter the contest. Please be sure I have your email address.

If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog and/or follow me on Twitter, mention this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry for each. You must be 13 years old or older to enter. The giveaway is international.

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday is hosted by Greg Pattridge. You can find the participating blogs on his blog.

Upcoming Interviews and Giveaways

Wednesday, July 14th I have an agent spotlight interview with Analieze Cervantes and a query critique giveaway

Friday, July 16th I’m participating in the Sip Sip Hooray Giveaway Hop

Monday, July 19th I have an interview with debut author Alysa Wishingrad and a giveaway of her MG fantasy The Verdigris Pawn

Wednesday, July 21^st I have an agent spotlight interview with Mary Cummings and a query critique giveaway

Monday, July 26th I have an agent spotlight interview with Allison Hellegers and a query critique giveaway

Sunday, August 1st I'm participating in the Apple a Day Giveaway Hop

Wednesday, August 4th I have an interview with debut author Laura Rueckert and a giveaway of her YA fantasy A Dragonbird in the Fern and my IWSG post

Monday, August 9th I have a guest post by debut author Rochelle Melander and a giveaway of her MG nonfiction Mightier Than the Sword: Rebels, Reformers, and Revolutionaries Who Changed the World through Writing 

Hope to see you on Wednesday!

 

Debut Author Interview: Kate Norris and When You and I Collide Giveaway and IWSG Post

Happy Wednesday Everyone! Today I’m excited to have debut author Kate Norris here to share about her YA historical/time travel When You and I Collide. The story line sounds fascinating, and it’s set in WWII. I’m looking forward to reading it this summer.

Here’s a blurb from Goodreads: 

A race against time, war, and the very fabric of the universe itself, perfect for fans of Sliding Doors and 11/22/63 .

Sixteen-year-old Winnie Schulde has always seen splits--the moment when two possible outcomes diverge, one in her universe and one in another. Multiverse theory, Winnie knows, is all too real, though she has never been anything but an observer of its implications--a secret she keeps hidden from just about everyone, as she knows the uses to which it might be put in the midst of a raging WWII. But her physicist father, wrapped up in his research and made cruel by his grief after the loss of Winnie's mother, believes that if he pushes her hard enough, she can choose one split over another and maybe, just maybe, change their future and their past.

Winnie is certain that her father's theories are just that, so she plays along in an effort to placate him. Until one day, when her father's experiment goes wrong and Scott, the kind and handsome lab assistant Winnie loves from afar, is seriously injured. Without meaning to, Winnie chooses the split where Scott is unharmed. And in doing so, finds herself pulled into another universe, an alternate reality. One that already has a Winnie.

In this darkly thrilling novel that blends science and war with love and loss, some actions just can't be undone.

IWSG Post

Before I get to my interview with Kate, I have my IWSG Post.

Posting: The first Wednesday is officially Insecure Writer's Support Group Day.

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

The awesome co-hosts for the July 7th posting of the IWSG are Pat Garcia, Victoria Marie Lees, and Louise – Fundy Blue!

Optional Question: What would make you quit writing?

To be honest, the heartbreak of losing my husband and all the other life changes that happened soon after that almost made me stop writing. I came very close to hitting delete on everything I’d written.

Thankfully, I only threw away a few newspaper clippings and did come back to my writing last year. I’m enjoying the process, and my writing is much stronger. But I’m just not as excited about being published anymore after everything I’ve gone through and watching so many authors go through the ups and downs of publishing.

It’s a lot of work to write a novel, and I’m a slow writer. Plus, so much of the process other than writing is out of our control, which has also been the challenge I’ve gone through as I’ve navigated life since my husband died.

Right now, I’m enjoying the creative process, so I will continue to write. But if it becomes too much of a struggle or there are other important things, like family, taking up my time, I could see myself not writing.

What about you? What would stop you from writing?

Interview With Kate Norris

Hi Kate! Thanks so much for joining us!

1. Tell us about yourself and how you became a writer.

I’ve always loved writing—my parents still have the ‘books’ I wrote when I was around 5 years old. But for whatever reason, I didn’t think writing was something I could realistically pursue as a career. When I was in my mid-twenties, working a job I hated, I realized I still dreamed of being a novelist, and decided to go for it. I knew I had no control over whether or not I would be successful, but I had control over whether or not I tried. I started writing again, eventually entered the MFA program at Ohio State, wrote a couple books that didn’t sell, and then, finally, one that did.

2. That’s awesome that you decided to go for it. Where did you get the idea for When You and I Collide?

I don’t have any sisters, so I’ve always found the dynamics of sisterhood really fascinating and wondered what it would be like to have one, especially a twin (we have many sets of twins and triplets in my extended family). That lead me to think about what it would be like to meet your own double. What if they were doing better than you by every metric?

I’ve also often had the feeling when things are such close calls that oh, that must have actually happened, just somewhere else in the multiverse. Like there’s another version of myself who did X or who avoided Y. And just more widely, I became interested in the idea of regret, and this character who was so plagued by regret that she wanted to try to make things un-happen.

So all of that ended up coalescing into the story of this girl whose life is pretty miserable, who happens to be able to see when alternative realities splinter off from her own. The boy she loves is killed in an accident, and she’s so unable to cope with that reality that she wills herself into another world. A better world, that already has another better (or so she thinks) version of herself in it.

3. It’s fascinating how your “what ifs” developed into this story. Your story is set in WWII. What research did you have to do to get the details of this time period right?

Thank god for the internet. I did a lot of googling, particularly about what NYC was like during the 40s. There is luckily a ton of material out there, including lots of photos, which helped bring the time to life for me, as well as watching lots of movies produced around the same time. But most of the worldbuilding focused on layering in historically-accurate scientific detail because that was what was most interesting to me about the period (that’s the “why” of the setting—I wanted the backdrop of the quantum revolution, and there is a particular story about Erwin Schrödinger that cemented the novel being set in 1942). My undergrad degree covered a ton of history and philosophy of science, so for that stuff it was more a process of re-learning things I vaguely remembered.

4. That’s great that you could re-learn what you’d already learned in college. You received your MFA from Ohio University and taught creative writing. You were also a fiction editor for The Journal. How have these experiences helped you in writing this story?

I’ve been told that one of my greatest strengths as a writer is how willing I am to radically revise, which is absolutely the result of years of workshopping as a student, as well as trying to help students revise and working as an editor. As a writer, it’s tempting to convince yourself that you can get away with revising minimally. As an editor and teacher, you see how false this is.

5. Share about your plotting process for When You and I Collide. Have you changed how you plot your stories from this experience?

I had the same experience I’ve seen other writers share: I did very minimal plotting for Collide. This led to an agonizing, several-year revision process. Now, I do much more planning before just diving into writing a draft. I’m still not a heavy outliner though. Basically, I try to have a strong sense of who the main characters are as human beings and know the major events that are going to happen, but a lot of the “how” I figure out along the way, which keeps things feeling alive for me while I’m writing. I wrote a book last year and this planning took the shape of a hybrid query-style summary/synopsis (longer and more detailed than a typical query, shorter and less fleshed out than a typical synopsis), as well as a sort of mental outline of the major plot points and twists. That book and the one I’m working on now are both thrillers, so I felt like I needed to know the solution to the puzzle I was writing from the beginning.

6. Yes, I’ve had to learn to plot more too after not plotting my first one and having to revise extensively. Winnie sounds like a fascinating character who is faced with tough choices. Did you have a good sense of her as a character before you started writing her story or did that change through drafting your manuscript? What are your three favorite things about her?

I need to feel like I know the main character to be able to start writing, but I also learned more about Winnie as I wrote, and her character shifted a bit over the course of revisions too. Probably my favorite thing about her is the tension between how logical and scientifically minded she is, and how much she relies on her daydreams about her love interest Scott to cope with her unpleasant life. She’s outwardly very rational and cold, but inside very fanciful. I also love how insecure she is and how much she really doesn’t know herself very well at all, because that gives her the space to really learn and grow over the course of the book.

7. Your agent is Lara Perkins. How did she become your agent and what was your road to publication like?

When You and I Collide was represented by both Lara Perkins and Laura Rennert. I originally queried Laura with the book I wrote before Collide (a sci-fi dystopian that we never ended up going on submission with), and back then Laura was taking on some clients in conjunction with Lara, who was an Assistant Agent at the time. Long story short, I cold-queried with a different project, was offered representation from Lara and Laura as co-agents, that book didn’t pan out and I wrote Collide, Laura and Lara offered editorial guidance over several rounds of revisions, then once it was ready we went on submission. It was on submission for one very long round, and sold after about 10 months. Of course, now Lara is a full Agent, and we transitioned to her representing me on her own. (Incidentally, for anyone who is looking for representation, Laura and Lara are both extremely gifted editorial agents who are a dream to work with, although I believe Lara is closed to queries at the moment.)

8. That’s great that you had the benefit of being represented by Lara and Laura. What is something that surprised you about the process of becoming a published author? Why?

I was warned that at every stage of publishing you don’t feel accomplished, just anxious about the next thing, but I still felt like “Oh, if I ever publish a novel, I’ll just be thrilled for forever.” I was wrong! And I’m still wrong! Because even now I think, “Oh, if I sell another novel, then I’ll never worry again!” It always feels like the next benchmark is the thing that will bring an end to all anxiety, but the benchmarks just shift.

9. What have you done to promote When You and I Collide and what are your future marketing plans? What advice do you have for other writers hoping to become a debut author?

About six months before the release of Collide, I started to panic about book promotion. It was becoming obvious that Collide wasn’t going to be a “big” book, and I so desperately want it to do well because it’s my baby and I love it, but mostly I just really, really want to be able to keep publishing books. Then I read a few extremely helpful blog posts like this one, whose advice basically summed up to “self-promotion isn’t going to make or break your book, so relax”. I’ve done some guest blogging, regularly participate in the #debutauthorchat on Twitter, have signed stock at local bookstores, and am hoping to participate in some festivals and conferences. I would love to do school and library visits too. But instead of spending time and money doing a pre-order campaign and trying to somehow teach myself how to be a marketing professional, I focused on finishing another book. So I think my advice would be “know yourself and work to your strengths”.    

10. You’re making me feel much better about marketing. What are you working on now?

I never know how coy I’m supposed to be about these things. Sometimes it seems like you’re supposed to keep everything a secret in publishing! But I’m currently working on a YA mystery with Twin Peaks vibes, set during a summer theater festival on an island off the coast of Maine.

Thanks for sharing all your advice, Kate. You can find Kate at https://linktr.ee/KateNorris

Giveaway Details

Kate has generously offered a hardback of When You and I Collide for a giveaway. To enter, all you need to do is be a follower of my blog (via the follower gadget, email, or bloglovin’ on the right sidebar) and leave a comment by July 24th. If your e-mail is not on your Google Profile, you must leave it in the comments to enter the contest. Please be sure I have your email address.

If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog and/or follow me on Twitter, mention this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry for each. You must be 13 years old or older to enter. The giveaway is international.

Upcoming Interviews and Giveaways

Monday, July 12th I have an interview with debut author Cliff Burke and a giveaway of his MG contemporary An Occasionally Happy Family

Wednesday, July 14th I have an agent spotlight interview with Analieze Cervantes and a query critique giveaway

Friday, July 16th I’m participating in the Sip Sip Hooray Giveaway Hop

Monday, July 19th I have an interview with debut author Alysa Wishingrad and a giveaway of her MG fantasy The Verdigris Pawn

Wednesday, July 21^st I have an agent spotlight interview with Mary Cummings and a query critique giveaway

Monday, July 26th I have an agent spotlight interview with Allison Hellegers and a query critique giveaway

Hope to see you on Monday!