June in Bloom in Hollywood

June Hollywood Schmooze
Jennifer Rofe, special guest from Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

Jennifer spoke of how she became an agent and went over opening segments from books she sold. Her stories of working with authors on their revisions and standing by them until they sold their first novel were heartening.

She is warm and intelligent, a young woman who loves her profession, and has the utmost respect (one might even say, love) for writers who she shepherds through the arduous task of first-time publication. And she sticks by her authors as they continue their writing careers.

the flowers on the way to the door

Why does one need an agent?

She replied: Why would you not want an agent?

Going into a deal with a major publishing firm without one, she said, is fool-hearty and naïve. You may get a deal, but it will not be anywhere near what you could have gotten with an agent and you may even get “scre—d.” (This is me paraphrasing, of course.)

So, do not fear the friendly agent. Find one who fits your style and go with it…so what if they take a cut off the top – that’s their livelihood! And that’s how you know that they are working as hard as they possibly can to get you the best deal possible – because they are working for themselves at the same time.

Rhonda Hayter on the left, schmoozing with a participant.

More schmoozing...

Our location...in case you were wondering! Very Hollywoody, n'est pas?
We also had another guest, Rita Crayon. We look forward to seeing your photos, Rita. Thanks for coming!

  

San Fran Vly - Glendale Area... Montrose Illus

WOW!! What a great meeting and new writers and illustrator peeps so glad you could join us for our 5th yr anniversary! And Yum.. hot brownies... had to do it, sorry for those on a summer diet, the party would not be complete without HOT Brownies.

Great work and nice developing portfolios.
So much great talent. I love to see the wide variety of styles that comes from our group.  We have a wide range, Pastels, Watercolor, Acrylic, Computer Digital Painted, Cut Paper, Ebook Animation, and Comic style.. so many. So glad to see that.

So everyone keep up with your portfolios and we can do maybe a mini show on-line with our newest works!!! Yay we get a web page for this with the SCBWI and I can email all our work to Rita to be posted.

We discussed Scanning our work with a high end not so expensive scanner, I will try to get that info for us. We also discussed digital painting and that there is a new schmooze that may be forming for strictly digital work and, I believe that will include ebooks... so that info will be coming in the near future.

We welcome our newcomers... Joanne, Great cards and the art looks like it will fit right in nicely with children's book illus. The discussion of Postcards came up and we all were in agreement that they are GOOD a plus, because they are a cheap way to promote your illus. and they can be sent to Art Dir and Publishers.. and to hand out it is fun, also for the SCBWI conf. Check out Vista Print or Moo, also your local printers, I found Minute Man Press is really cheap and sets up your art the size it needs to be, with your name and info etc, Monique is great and they have been there in Glendale forever.

Also newcomer Alice, with her great book dummy 'Milo'. Great start, we had a lot of input, hope it was not overwhelming, such a great idea for a positive book. Keep going and share with us as you go along. Linda was back again with her ebook layouts, nice work, like to see the progression. We had a new Jason (I hope this is correct) with YOU'RE COLOR self pub book and your 'Charley Counting Crow' ... Nice styles, we did discuss having too many styles and that prob. is not a good idea to have more then 3... maybe even 2 in a portfolio. That it is a good idea to stick with the style that you feel most comfortable with and enjoy the most, because you don't want to get a job doing 32 pgs and have it be some style that is too new or not one that you are best at.

Terry shared her cut paper portfolio and has so many new works, great job Terry, you are sooo busy and yet you still create new work on a reg basis, nice! Makes me jealous, but also motivated. We talked about having more different angles and point of views, close ups and such vs. a lot of the same kind of layouts. Makes it more exciting to view.. Jason, nice portfolio, welcome back... looks so great on the ipad.. and we discussed consistency and style and using comp aided design and watercolor, also CONGRATS to your new published comic book JIMMY BRASS!!! Great Job!

All was so wonderfun.. ok i am keeping that typo... was a slip but sounds great to me.. should be a word!

Thank you all for the great words, I know I have a lot of work to do.. large or small.. I will be trying out new stuff and sharing in Sept... or earlier if we can pull together some art for our site page.

Ok peace out.. I am off to Cabo and would love to take you all with me. :) Jen Swain