By Shya Scanlon

On September 24th, 2005, a long-overdue one-way ticket landed me in New York City where I’d pledged to seriously pursue a writing career. I found a tiny hole in the Lower East Side, and an email I sent on October 10th reads, “I’m sitting alone in a dark apartment in the middle of one of the most intense and social cities in the world. What the hell is wrong with me?”

My schedule those days involved coming home from my job—working as a copywriter in an office on Broad Street in front of which bomb-sniffing dogs and policemen wearing bulletproof vests and carrying automatic rifles paraded all day—pouring myself a glass of single malt whiskey, and standing, not sitting, in the kitchen and typing furiously at what eventually became the collection of prose poetry called In This Alone Impulse.

The night I sent that email, like most nights that winter, I was terribly alone, I was half drunk, and I was suffering from an overwhelming mixture of both over and under exposure—close enough to my dreams to be truly frightened by them. I was, in other words, living something closely resembling the idealized image I’d half-consciously carried in my mind about the life of a writer since first wanting to become one.

When you think of the writing life, many things come to mind, both good and bad: isolation, frustration, intensity, investigation, exploration, imagination… booze. If you’re lucky, of course, these things are accompanied by publication, recognition, accolades, and the like. But I would be very surprised if many aspiring authors put things like networking or community building, or—dare I say it here?—hustling on the list. Even near the bottom. That spot is reserved for “dying of syphilis.”

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Ladies and gentlemen of the court, all rise for the noble and knowledgeable Danielle Chiotti, literary agent at Upstart Crow Literary and esteemed judge of WordHustler’s Literary Storm Novel Contest (NEWSFLASH: due to popular demand, we’ve extended the deadline to February 26, 2010! You’ve still got time to submit!). Danielle is passionate about great writing, finding amazing new clients, and helping writers succeed in the publishing industry.

Luckily for us, Danielle made time in her busy schedule to sit down and discuss what draws her to different books, how important the query letter really is, and how she plucks talented writers out of the slush pile. Will you be the next gifted scribe to catch her eye?

Read the interview to find out, then polish those manuscripts and send them out!

WordHustler: How did you get your start in the publishing industry?

Danielle Chiotti: Completely by accident, actually. I graduated with a degree in Creative Writing, and spent a year waitressing before I basically stumbled into a job doing reader’s reports for a small literary agency. A few months later, they asked me if I wanted to come in and learn about being an agent. I had no idea what that meant, but I thought, “Oh, why not?” I’ve been working in publishing ever since.

WH: You’ve worked all over the publishing industry, at places like Kensington Publishing and Adams Media. What is the main difference between editing and agenting, and why did you decide to make the switch?

DC: Literary agents have a lot more autonomy than editors do; we’re not beholden to a certain set of parameters for publishing a book. I loved my work as an editor, but there were always so many rules about what I could and could not acquire, depending on the needs of the publisher. As an agent, I can truly sign the projects I love–in any area I choose.

WH: What draws you to a fiction book? Non-fiction?

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WordHustler’s Literary Storm Novel Contest- FINAL DEADLINE EXTENDED!

WordHustler is taking our writing contests to a whole new level with the debut of our Literary Storm Novel Contest (ENTER HERE). Submit the first 50 pages of your novel and you could win BIG! The details:

Official Judge: Literary Agent Danielle Chiotti of Upstart Crow Literary

Grand Prize: A Complete Manuscript Critique by Joyce Sweeney, who has helped 27 people get published! (Psst: this prize is worth over $500!) as well as publication consideration from brilliant indie press Flatmancrooked!

Second and Third Prizes: Barnes and Noble Gift Certificates

NEW BONUS PRIZE:  The Top Ten Entries will ALL be considered for publishing by Flatmancrooked!

FINAL Deadline: February 26th, 2010

Entry Fee: $15 ($10 if submitted BEFORE January 27th, 2010)

What to Submit: The first 50 pages of your finished novel, along with a cover letter. Manuscript critiques are also available for an additional fee of $25 ($20 if submitted BEFORE Jan. 27th, 2010). All genres of novels are accepted, including Middle Grade and Young Adult.

Go to the WordHustler Literary Storm Contest listing RIGHT HERE to enter or hit the button below to sign in (or sign up) and enter!

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Have you ever wanted to sit a literary agent down and ask them all those burning questions bouncing around in your brain: How important is the query? What kind of books get you excited? How many author clients do you REALLY find in the slush pile?

So have we. And so we did. Enter Adriann Ranta, newly-arrived agent at Wolf Literary Services who has spent years shepherding writers through the editing and agenting processes. Adriann handled all the hard-hitting writing questions we dished out, and even asked for seconds.

Read on to discover what Adriann considers the best kind of query letters, what she thinks about YA books, and why she loves the word “percussive.” Then it’ll be time to get an agent for yourself! Success never tasted so good!

WordHustler: How did you get your start in the publishing industry?

Adriann Ranta: I graduated with my obligatory, directionless liberal arts degree having no idea what I wanted to do with books, but knowing I had to do something with them since they’re all I’ve really felt passionately about. After considering and quickly declining a phone sex job as an outlet for creativity, I got a job at The Editorial Department, the oldest freelance editing firm in the country, based in Tucson, AZ.

I worked as their managing editor of Between the Lines, gathering info and interviewing professionals in the industry. Eventually, I moved to New York and through a variety of internships, assistant positions, and odd jobs found that agenting is the niche that most suits me.

WH: What’s the main difference between editing and agenting, and why did you decide to make the switch?

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So you’ve used WordHustler to send physical submissions to agents, editors, and publishers, but what about markets who request submissions via email? Not to worry, we’ve got you covered there as well.

For only $5.99/month, you can find markets and email contact info, submit your work via your own email address, and have everything tracked in your WordHustler Dashboard.

To get started, simply go into your “My Account” page and click on the blue “Digital Submission Membership” link and sign up for the system.

The way the system works is simple:

a.    Once your Digital Membership is activated, each market page will display email addresses for agents, editors, etc who accept email submissions.
b.    On the Market page, click the email address of the person you’d like to submit to. This will open your default mail program — if it doesn’t, just copy and paste the email address into your email program or web browser.
c.    Enter Tracking@WordHustler.com into the BCC, or Blind Carbon Copy, address field. If you need helping finding this field on your email browser, please email Support@WordHustler.com.
d.    Prepare your submission according to the specific market guidelines listed on the market’s page- for example, some markets want a query and the first five pages pasted into the body of the email, some want the entire manuscript sent as an attachment. CAREFULLY READ each specific market’s guidelines on their market page.
e.    SEND your email.

That’s it! Your submission will now be sent and best of all, will be tracked in your WordHustler Dashboard using our organized tracking technology. You are free to customize the title of your submission in your Dashboard, and can now reference how long the submission has been out and what materials you’ve sent. The emails themselves, as well as any attachments, are visible and downloadable in your Dashboard.

IMPORTANT NOTES FOR THE DIGITAL SUB. SYSTEM:

1.    IMPORTANT: You must send your queries from the email address you registered for WordHustler with. If you aren’t sure which email address you used, please look in the “My Account” section.
2.    You can track any email correspondence you want through our system. You are not limited to markets we have listed. For example, if you are sending a project to a friend and want to track it in your Dashboard, simply add “Tracking@WordHuslter.com” in the BCC field of your email and the project will appear in your Dashboard.
3.    YOU are responsible for adding “Tracking@WordHustler.com” to the BCC field of your outgoing email submissions. Make sure you use the BCC FIELD. Some email clients don’t automatically display BCC as an option until you click “Add BCC”. If you need help using BCC, please email Support@WordHustler.com.
4.    If you forget to BCC “Tracking@WordHustler.com” in your email submission, you can resend or forward the email to “Tracking@WordHustler.com” directly (don’t resend it to the market you are submitting to) and it will appear in your Dashboard.
5.    You will be able to view and download all digital correspondence you send from your Dashboard- even attachments.
6.    IMPORTANT - EMAILS MUST BE IN PLAIN TEXT. Fancy backgrounds, wild fonts, icons, pictures, etc will cause your submission to be rejected by both our system and most markets.
7.    It’s also a good idea to make sure the address you are querying is properly entered into your email address book so the market’s response doesn’t go into your Spam folder.
8.     Please email all questions and feedback to Support@WordHustler.com.

That’s it. It’s simple, it’s effective, and it WORKS. So what are you waiting for? Time to get started on that road to publishing success today! Good luck and keep on Hustlin!

Who is more passionate than a mother about her children? Only a mother who is also a writer! Meet Corin Wiser, mother, wife, and successful author of the book Matters of the Heart: A Guide to Living and Loving Your Teen Years. As Corin puts it, her book “offers simple and straightforward tools to help the reader connect with her inner voice, or ‘internal guidance system,’ and to overcome negative influences on the way to reaching her full potential.”

Well, it’s definitely working. After publishing her book, Corin has seen it snapped up by mothers and daughters everywhere! A series of workshops have sprung up to accompany the book, and it’s even been embraced as required reading in some forward-thinking schools! Not bad for a mama with something to say, huh?

WordHustler sat down with Corin to get her opinion on what to do when the drive to write overtakes you, how to market yourself as a new author, and why sometimes breakfast for dinner is the best solution. Read on to find out more about this amazing mother/writer! Also, stay tuned - at end of the interview if you answer a fabulous trivia question correctly, you could win a FREE copy of Corin’s book!

WordHustler: You have a background as a speaker and have your Masters in Education- what made you decide you HAD to write this book?

Corin Wiser: That’s precisely how I felt - I felt that I HAD to write this book. A few years ago, I was drawn to my old journals, journals that I’d kept since I was nine years old. I sat on my bedroom floor for two days and just read, reconnecting with my younger self. What I discovered in those journals was a young adolescent who had a pretty good childhood, but who also experienced self-doubt and insecurity, feelings of uncertainty and insignificance, and plenty of unanswered questions and regrettable mistakes. Looking back, I wish I’d had a roadmap - a guidebook - to help me discover and focus on the things that really mattered to me, and to help me develop the strength and courage to live by those things.

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