Webinars

Getting a literary agent is no easy feat. It requires crafting a query and pitch to get their attention — without making any “querial killer” mistakes that will get your submission rejected. Cutting through the slush is hard work. That’s why we’re lucky to have agent Katharine Sands (Sarah Jane Freymann Literary) to teach “From Pitch to Page One: How to Get an Agent from the Get-Go,” a new webinar on Thursday, May 23, 2013. The webinar starts at 1 p.m., EST, and lasts 90 minutes. Katharine is one of the most in-demand agents at writers conferences nationwide because of her teaching skill. (She authored the book Making the Perfect Pitch.) Read more

Every novel is driven by character. We fall in love with heroines, cheer for heroes, and loathe our villains. Characters draw us in, and through them we experience our favorite stories. Without a compelling cast, even the most engrossing tale can fall flat. What makes some protagonists iconic, while others go up in smoke? How can we create rich motivations without burdensome back-story, or nuanced supporting characters without stealing focus from our protagonists? How can we populate our novels with an unforgettable ensemble our readers will love? The answer involves giving your characters a great blend of relationships, history and motivations.

That’s why we’re excited to have a new webinar taught by literary agent and author John M. Cusick (Greenhouse Literary) called “FULL CAST: How to Enrich and Expand Every Character in Your Novel from the Leading Man to the Background Extras.” The event happens at 1 p.m., EST, Thursday, June 16, 2013, and lasts 90 minutes. Read more

Getting a literary agent is a massive step to seeing your writing dreams come to life. An agent can get you a book deal from a major publisher. An agent can help sell your book overseas and to Hollywood. An agent can help guide your career. All that said, finding and signing with an agent is a tricky thing. You’ve got to write a manuscript, compose a query, put together a synopsis, research agents, craft a pitch, consider your platform, and more. It’s all a lot to take in. Where do you start? What’s the best path to take?

These types of questions are why we’ve put together the upcoming May 9 live webinar, “Everything You Need to Know About Getting an Agent: Queries, Synopses, Pitching, Copyright, and More.” It’s actually taught by me (Chuck Sambuchino) and lasts 90 minutes. The session is at 1 p.m., EST, Thursday, May 9, 2013 — but you do not need to attend the actual live broadcast to get the recording & extras. And regarding said extras, all attendees will get 1) a downloadable PDF of the book FORMATTING & SUBMITTING YOUR MANUSCRIPT as well as 2) exclusive one-sheet that details the 7 parts of a query letter pitch. Read more

We all know that writers want to take their novel (or screenplay) to the next level. That’s why we have “The StoryFixer” Larry Brooks teaching the all-new webinar “From Good to Great: How to Apply the Principles of Story Physics to Craft the Best Fiction of Your Life” at 1 p.m., Thursday, March 21, 2013. It lasts 90 minutes. (All registrants will get a one-page synopsis critiqued by instructor Larry Brooks!) Read more

A lot of WD’s webinars are focused on a particular element or genre. Sometimes they’re on writing something specific like a picture book, while other times they’re intensives on query letters or synopses. But this week it’s time to get back to basics. It’s time to talk about the crucial and essential story elements of character, plot and setting. To accomplish this, we have literary agent and instructor extraordinaire Roseanne Wells (Jennifer De Chiara Literary) teaching the all-new webinar, “The Three Essential Building Blocks of Your Novel: Who, What, and Where,” on Thursday, March 14, 2013. The webinar starts at 1 p.m., EST and lasts 90 minutes. And there’s more: Each registrant gets the first 500 pages of their novel critiqued by Roseanne! Read more

This week, literary agent Jennifer Laughran (Andrea Brown Literary) is going to provide a ton of instruction in her brand new webinar for WD. The webinar’s instruction is about both the process of finding & pitching agents as well as what to do after you have an agent. But to round out the presentation, Jennifer is critiquing the query letter of all registants. Virtually no topic of the publication path will go unaddressed.

Jennifer will teach “Beyond the Query: Catching and Keeping an Agent” at 1 p.m., EST, Thursday, March 7, 2013. The webinar lasts 90 minutes, and each registrant gets their query critiqued by Jennifer. Read more

Plot and structure are so important to a story. Heck, that’s the key word to all this: story. A plot and structure is essentially your story’s framework. Many whole books have been written on plot because it’s such a tricky complicated thing. How can you keep people turning the pages? How can you affect their emotions and get them to continue reading? Plot factors in huge.

Luckily for us, we’ve got literary agent and instructor extraordinaire Kate McKean of Howard Morhaim Literary to teach “Find, Fix and Finesse Your Plot into a Winning Idea” — a brand new webinar at 1 p.m., Thursday, Fe. 28, 2013. It lasts 90 minutes and comes with an awesome critique of your entire synopsis! Read more

It’s no secret that the first several pages of your manuscript are of the highest importance. The truth is that agents and editors size up your writing within a minute at the most. If you don’t have their attention on Page 1, they stop reading. It’s that simple. Because it’s imperative that your work starts strong and avoids overused techniques or cliches, we’ve enlisted literary agent Kathleen Ortiz of New Leaf Literary to help. Kathleen is teaching “Your Story’s First Pages: How to Engage the Reader” – a new webinar (with a critique of your first 500 words!) on Jan. 24, 2013. Read on to learn more. Read more

We all want to try and meet more readers and sell more books. That’s the primary goal of being on social media, is it not? To connect with people, to network. To help us with this broad and important undertaking we call networking, we’ve enlisted literary agent Dawn Frederick (Red Sofa Literary) to teach a brand new webinar on Dec. 20, 2012 called “How to Network and Sell More Books.” This instruction will be of great value to 1) self-published authors looking to get their work into bookstores and sell more books, and 2) writers who are submitting to agents & editors now who also hope to make themselves a more attractive author by having great self-marketing potential. Read more

If you want to find success as an author — whether through traditional publishing or self-publishing — you must make an effort to connect with other people. That’s the whole point of social media like Twitter and Facebook — to connect with readers and writers. But fundamentally more important than social media is simply having a comprehensive author website. That’s why we’ve enlisted eMedia professor and guru Jane Friedman to teach the webinar “Create an Author Website in 24 Hours or Less” at 1 p.m., EST, Thursday, September 20, 2012. The intensive class lasts two hours. Read more