Holly Jennings's Blog, page 2

How to List Writing Credits on your Query Letter

  How much do writing credits matter? What should I include? When it comes to query letters, I get these questions a lot from newer writers. So, I decided to do a blog post about writing credits for anyone else out there who is wondering the same thing. As I always state when giving advice: […]

Query Letters: Writing Credits

How much do writing credits matter? What should I include? When it comes to query letters, I get these questions a lot from newer writers. So, I decided to do a blog post about writing credits for anyone else out there who is wondering the same thing. As I always state when giving advice: I […]

4 Things I Wish I Had Known as a Debut Author

Back in 2016, when I was a debut author, I felt like a fish on dry land. I was flopping around and getting some attention, but I was completely out of my element. There are tons of resources, writer’s groups, and blog posts for newer writers trying to break into publishing, helping them hone their […]

Writing and Life: What I’ve been doing for the last year

Now that I’ve fully transferred my site over to a new server and have re-posted all my old blogs, I thought I’d give you an update about what’s been going on with me for the last several months. This post will probably be a little all over the place because I’m summing up nearly 12 […]

Arena 3: A Follow-up Message to my Readers

*This post was originally published on August 29, 2017. It’s been a little over a month since I released the post about all the changes in my life, how I nearly gave up on writing, and about the Arena series getting dropped by my publisher. If you haven’t read it yet, here’s the link. Since […]

The Query that Landed Me a NY Agent and Big Five Publisher

You asked for it. By popular demand, here it is: the query for my novel ARENA. Look, I’ll be the first to admit it’s not perfect, but it still bagged me several requests from agents, an offer of representation, and a two-book deal with Ace (Penguin). In less than six months. That’s right. I started querying […]

Arena 3: A Message to My Readers

*This post was originally published on July 14, 2017. So, I’ve been off the grid for a few weeks and I feel like I should explain what’s going on with me, my writing, and the Arena series. Okay, painful part first. I hate to have to tell you this, but my publisher has decided to […]

A Starting Guide to Query Letters

First of all, let me start off by saying I am in no way an expert on query letters. The one that landed me an agent went through roughly thirty rewrites. Yes, you read that right. Not three. Thirty. Some writers believe the query letter takes more time and effort than the entire manuscript itself. […]

5 Reasons Your Query Gets Rejected

SPACE In the summer of 2014, it began. When I first started drafting my query letter, I set myself on the most epic of all quests: discovering what it would take to get an agent drooling to read my book. Every spare minute I had was spent hunched over the computer, reading blog after blog. At first, […]

New Host, New Site

I finally got fed up with my former web host and moved my site over to something much more manageable. Actually, I’ve been fed up for a long time but I kept putting it off. Now, my annual subscription was coming up and no way was I going to dump another year’s worth of time and money into my old host. Nothing like the threat of a credit card charge to get me motivated.

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So far, I’ve moved everything over except some of my blog posts. Those will be migrating over soon. That was the biggest issue I had with my former host: it was terrible for blogging, and it’s something I’ve been wanting to do more often for a while now. A few years ago I wrote a few posts about query letters and other writing advice, and they drove traffic to my site in tsunami waves. However, the blogging capabilities were so poor that few people could find their way to other posts or to the rest of my site after landing there from google or a twitter link.

No more.

I’m hoping to use this new blogging space to keep you all updated more often; write about what’s going on with me and my books, what I’m currently working on, things I’ve learned about the publishing industry, and so on.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be re-posting my most popular posts here and expanding on new material afterwards. If there’s a topic you’d like to see covered about me or the publishing industry, feel free to email me through the contact form found here.

Talk soon!