What will I get from this newsletter?

Within the dark dark wood of the book publishing industry, “How to Glow in the Dark” offers you a spot around a campfire in a nice little clearing strung up with tea lights. We offer companionship and guidance to everyone trying to start or grow their writing career.

This newsletter is for all kinds of authors: aspiring, #amwriting, querying, submitting, under contract, post-publication, popping champagne, popping Xanax, screaming into a pillow, whatever. Our goal is to offer you rest and comfort as well as the practical tools necessary to make your time in this place a lot less scary and more fulfilling. (Hopefully also more successful, but that’s kinda out of our control.)

This newsletter is a publication of Neon Literary, a top literary agency specializing in literary fiction and all kinds of nonfiction for adult readers. We’re on a mission to secure real power (as opposed to just “empowerment”) for authors who weren’t born entitled to it, in part by demystifying book publishing in all its idiosyncratic, shibboleth-festooned glory.

Anna Sproul-Latimer, co-founder of Neon, writes about 95% of the posts here, although her partner Kent Wolf and other colleagues and friends chime in from time to time, too.

Subscribers get detailed publishing tips every week, delivered directly to their email. You also get full access to our full archive of advice, which we also use to give our own clients written-down versions of our many years’ accumulated editorial development and other expertise.

What will I not get from this newsletter?

Here’s the most important thing to know: Subscribing to this newsletter will have NO BEARING on your chances of finding literary representation at Neon Literary, whether with Anna Sproul-Latimer, Kent Wolf, or any current or future member of our staff.

If you try to use a subscription to this newsletter to get around our submissions policy, which you can find here, we will delete your submission without considering it. Don’t be gross.

Although subscribers are welcome to query us alongside everyone else per our guidelines, please don’t even bring up the newsletter if you do. We pre-accept all your compliments in our hearts and therefore do not need to hear them in your query.

Aside from the obvious ethical considerations at play here, we’re keeping this boundary big and bright because the newsletter is more valuable for all parties that way. We can give candid advice and answer your questions honestly here because nobody is trying to schmooze or be schmoozed.

Another thing that’s worth noting is that we’re not specialists in kids’ books or genre fiction, so there’s not going to be a whole lot of tailored advice for those. You’re welcome here if you write those kinds of things! Plenty of posts will be useful to you in a nonspecific way. We just don’t want you to feel shortchanged.

We’re glad you’re here!

Thank you for sharing in our mission to make publishing a brighter, less confusing experience for all.