Entries by Betsy Thorpe

Read Like an English Major

My daughter just graduated from college (a semester early, so my savings’ account thanks her dearly!), and now she is looking for a job. Since a lot of interviews take place over the phone for obvious reasons, I end up hearing snippets of her conversations. I’ve preached to her over the years that majoring in the […]

Query Letter: Going Beyond the Pitch – Knowing About Who You Are

I’ve read thousands of query letters. Thousands and thousands. At the beginning of my career, the queries came from agents. They were polished. They were short. They were resting on the laurels of that agent’s reputation. If a high-powered agent sent a submission to me or my boss, I knew I had to put whatever […]

Leaving Publishing for a Solo Career: One Woman’s Story

I remember seeing the notice in Publisher’s Weekly. A senior editor I knew at Hyperion had gone to work as a freelance editor, and her email address followed to get in contact with her. Poor woman, I thought, she’ll never get any work. No publisher I had ever worked for had a budget to assign out developmental […]