Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

By Leah Hultenschmidt, Senior Editor This week, I’ve been doing a big pitch critique over at YA chat lit. Even though the material is all young adult, you might want to check it out for ideas in honing your own pitches:http://yalitchat.ning.com/forum/topics/pitch-slam-weekend-january-13-15-2012. Here’s a roundup of some of the most common questions I had for those who submitted a pitch: · Where’s the hook? What is the element of your story that’s going to make everyone clamor to read it? · Where and when is it set? · Does it fit the category? If it’s YA, the pitch needs to mention that the characters are teens. And for romance, I need a happy ending for the main characters. One comment that came up frequently for me was that I’d seen a lot of similar themes lately. The pitch was strong—it summarized the story, it had a hook, there was a sense of drama, the storyline was clear—but I felt as if I’d read it before. This is always...

Thanks so much for having me today! A quick intro for those who may not know me yet: I worked at Dorchester Publishing editing romances and Westerns for 10 years before having the wonderful opportunity to join Sourcebooks last month. I adore romance and I’m really looking forward to meeting you all and further growing the Casa list. I’ll also be acquiring for our young adult imprint, Sourcebooks Fire. And I’ve been having so much fun taking a whole new look at the genre. Raging hormones, crazy friends, a new driver’s license, college pressure…being a teenager can be a really scary time. And being a parent of a teen—whoa boy! That doesn’t even take into account turning into a werewolf, rescuing your family in a dystopian world, getting pregnant, a wish-granting crystal ball, dealing with death, a demon attack, or any of the number of other things we see in today’s YA market. Deb has drilled in her romance criteria so that I think many regular readers here can p...

By Deb Werksman I was, of course, a book worm growing up. I was the kind of kid who would read while I was walking down the stairs, and my mom would have to call me multiple times for dinner because I didn't hear her while I had my nose in a book. (Can you relate to this?) My mom and I used to have this conversation about re-reading--she couldn't believe I would re-read a book I had already read once. Meanwhile, there are some books I re-read on a regular basis (Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer come to mind). When I first read Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale I re-read the ending about 10 times before I could put the book down and I pick it up about every 3 months and re-read that scene again. One of the things we're doing at Sourcebooks that I'm really excited about is bringing some of these classics back into print. We have 4 of Laura Kinsales: Uncertain Magic, Seize the Fire, Prince of Midnight and Midsummer Moon, which is lighter and funny and delightful, wh...