After five decades of rejections, Stephen Bentar — who sold most of his books one at a time — is getting recognition for his writing. A great example of perseverance.

Tips on promoting your books from debut author Wendy Webb and JA Konrath.

Agent Sarah LaPolla at Curtis Brown LTD is taking on clients:

Sarah is interested in literary fiction, narrative nonfiction, urban fantasy, paranormal romance, science fiction, literary horror, and young adult fiction. She loves complex characters, coming-of-age stories, and strong narrators.

Why agent Kristin Nelson knows The Tipping Point For eBooks Is Here Or Very Near:

“When I’ve got an older grandmother expressing unabashed enthusiasm in owning an eReader, I can’t help but think the tipping point is near—even if current electronic sales only equal about 2% of the market right now (statistic via a recent PW article).”

The Huffington Post tells us “The 50 Best Book People To Follow On Twitter.” Here’s a Tweet from Meg Cabot:

“What if my last Tweet before I die had the word corndogs in it? You know that would so never happen to Nicholas Sparks.”

Orbit, the Science Fiction and Fantasy imprint of Hachette Book Group, plans to publish digital short fiction later this year. It would be interesting to see this happen in all genres, including commercial fiction.

“Orbit (US) has offered to publish digital editions of all original short fiction written by its authors. The digital editions will be distributed widely through major retail channels, for reading on a variety of devices. Authors will be paid a royalty for each story sold, rather than the flat fee more common in the short story market.”

From RWA enNotes (you can read more on Publishers Weekly):

The Bantam Dell and Ballantine imprints have merged into one division under the Random House Publishing Group. Libby McGuire, senior vice president and publisher, will oversee the new Ballantine Bantam Dell unit. The new BBD executive team consists of Jennifer Hershey, senior vice president, editor-in-chief; Scott Shannon, publisher, BBD Mass Market. Gina Wachtel, Bantam associate publisher, takes on the role of associate publisher for BBD Mass Market; Linda Marrow, editorial director, will report to publisher Libby McGuire. Nita Taublib, executive vice president, publisher and editor-in-chief of Bantam Dell is leaving the company.

I found out about two fun sites for writers. The Guide to Grammar and Writing and the WordCounter. For the latter, I loaded in a first chapter and it told me which words were used most and how many times.

In an interview at Novelists Inc., Random House Senior Editor Shauna Summers says she works on primarily romance and women’s fiction.

FinePrint agent Colleen Lindsay lists general word counts for genres.

mainstream/commercial fiction/thrillers = Depending upon the kind of fiction, this can vary: chick lit runs anywhere from 80k word to 100k words; literary fiction can run as high as 120k but lately there’s been a trend toward more spare and elegant literary novels as short as 65k; thrillers also run in somewhere around the 100k to 120k mark; historical fiction can run as high as 160k words or more (and again, these are just rough guides – there are always exceptions). Anything under 50k is usually considered a novella, which isn’t something agents or editors ever want to see unless the editor has commissioned a short story collection. (Agent Kristin Nelson has a good post about writers querying about manuscripts that are too short.)

Dean Wesley Smith gives basic business rules for hiring and working with an agent.

“I am not against the standard writer/agent business model in publishing. I feel writers need good agents to help them through much of the early years. But for heaven’s sake, think like a business person when hiring an agent.”

J.A. Konrath says self-publishing ebooks on Kindle isn’t for everyone.

“If you have an out of print backlist. If you have an agent with books she hasn’t been able to sell. If you’re a published author with some shelf novels. Then yes, you should get on Kindle and iPad and Nook and Sony and everyplace else that comes up.

But if you’re a newbie author who hasn’t even finished your first novel yet and is already designing the cover art, perhaps you need to slow down a bit.”

Another interesting blog by JA Konrath on The Value of eBooks — but I have to add that it’s just his opinion. Some of the comments are as interesting as the blog. That goes for Dean Wesley Smith’s post, too.

We’re having our first agent guest blogger this Monday, the fabulous Jennifer Schober from Spencerhill Associates. She’s written a great blog and she’s taking questions. Be sure to stop off and comment.

Agent Jessica Faust from Bookends posted her New and Updated Publishing Dictionary. She says it’s an “ever-popular post.”

Agent Donald Maass wrote a blog about The Elements of Awe on Writer Unboxed that every writer should read. He used information from a New York Times article on a study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania. The study shows which NY Times articles are most emailed to friends and family, and end up going viral. Maass brilliantly links the results to writing.

“Their conclusions have some relevance for fiction writers because they reveal what it is about stories that probably generate word of mouth. This month and next I’m going to discuss these elements and show how you can apply them in your novels.”

If you can bear reading one more article about e-book pricing, the Math of Publishing Meets the E-Book might be the one.

J.A. Konrath has only good things to say about e-books. His blog title says it all: “JA Konrath Kindle Sales: 30k Ebooks in 11 months.”

“I’m currently selling $1.99 ebooks at the rate of 170 per day. That means I’m earning around $120 per day just sitting on my butt. If this trend continues as-is, I’ll earn $43,800 this year on previously published short stories and novels that NY print publishing rejected.”

E-books aren’t the only unconventional alternative writers are taking. John Edgar Wideman, a two-time winner of the Faulker Award for fiction, is publishing his next book through Lulu. Briefs, Stories for the Palm of the Mind, are available now.

“I’ve been thinking about alternatives for a long time,” said Wideman, whose works of fiction and non-fiction include the award-winning Brothers and Keepers, Philadelphia Fire and Fanon. “Lulu seems to represent a very live possibility as the publishing industry mutates. I like the idea of being in charge. I have more control over what happens to my book. And I have more control over whom I reach.”

This study on The Short-Term Influence of Free Digital Versions of Books on Print Sales shows that for the most part giving free digital books increases sales. The only ones that didn’t work was Tor, and they concluded it could have been because of Tor’s distribution.

“Two of these books (titles 32 and 41) both had releases of paperback editions that preceded the free book by only a few weeks. Thus for the majority of the ‘pre’ weeks, a paperback version was not available. These newly released paperback versions could easily explain why the “pre” sales of these titles were less than the “post” sales.”