Help me, Dear Reader. You’re my Only Hope….

A writer’s best friends are her readers and her writing community. Thus, à la Princess Leia, I’m not too proud to ask for a bit of help now and again.

Frequently, I find myself amazed by the speed with which the writing world changes. When I first ventured into publishing, eBooks were a twinkle in someone’s eye. Self-publishing meant arranging for a vanity press to print (for a fee) hard and paperback copies of your book. The standard method for seeking publication was for an author to directly submit her manuscript to a publishing house. Literary agents were a nice-to-have, rather than the (with rare exception) must-have they are today if you’re pursuing traditional publication.

In little more than a decade, all this has changed.

Now it’s almost unheard of for an author to pitch his or her own “unsolicited” manuscript directly to a publishing house. Today, common practice means landing an agent who then uses her institutional knowledge and professional credibility to act as an intermediary, approaching publishers on her author’s behalf.