Before and After the Book Deal
A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book
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Narrated by:
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Courtney Maum
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By:
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Courtney Maum
About this listen
Everything you've ever wanted to know about publishing but were too afraid to ask is right here in this funny, candid guide by acclaimed author Courtney Maum. Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer's Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book has over 150 contributors from all walks of the industry, including internationally best-selling authors Anthony Doerr, Roxane Gay, Garth Greenwell, Lisa Ko, R. O. Kwon, Rebecca Makkai, and Ottessa Moshfegh, alongside cult favorites Sarah Gerard, Melissa Febos, Mitchell S. Jackson, and Mira Jacob. Agents, film scouts, film producers, translators, disability and minority activists, and power agents and editors also weigh in, offering advice and sharing intimate anecdotes about even the most taboo topics in the industry.
Are MFA programs worth the time and money? How do people actually sit down and finish a novel? Did you get a good advance? What do you do when you feel envious of other writers? And why the heck aren't your friends saying anything about your book? Covering questions ranging from the logistical to the existential (and everything in between), Before and After the Book Deal is the definitive guide for anyone who has ever wanted to know what it's really like to be an author.
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- Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Manifest Now provides a step-by-step guide with tools, techniques, and proven strategies to raise your frequency and create the reality you want. This audiobook is designed to guide you through the mental, physical, and spiritual aspects of manifesting and creating all that your heart desires. You'll learn how to start removing mental and emotional blocks so you can rediscover that manifesting is your natural birthright. You'll feel more confident, reconnected, and powerful as you listen.
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This is my first review of 2 years subscribed!
- By Rodrigo on 02-22-19
By: Idil Ahmed
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How to Release Anxiety
- By: Gabrielle Bernstein
- Narrated by: Gabrielle Bernstein
- Length: 1 hr and 29 mins
- Original Recording
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It’s not just you. Stress levels are at an all-time high—so much so that a recently convened panel of medical experts in the US has recommended that all adults under the age of 65 be screened for anxiety. In How to Release Anxiety, Gabby Bernstein offers simple, actionable steps for feeling better, living with more ease, and showing up for those around us. Gabby’s unusual advice: Rather than manage your anxiety, what if you befriended it? Gabby posits that what we befriend, we can ultimately be at ease with. So she invites us to get curious.
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Not my thing, but one good point
- By Scott on 10-22-22
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30 Covert Emotional Manipulation Tactics: How Manipulators Take Control in Personal Relationships
- By: Adelyn Birch
- Narrated by: Kitty Hendrix
- Length: 1 hr and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Identifying covert emotional manipulation is tricky. You sense something is wrong, but you can't quite put your finger on the problem. This powerful book will reveal to you if manipulation is at play in your relationships. It will open your eyes. You will learn 30 tactics manipulators use to get what they want. You will also learn to spot the warning signs within yourself that expose covert manipulation is taking place, even if you can't identify the specific tactics being used.
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This book can change your life!
- By Cat O. on 04-04-18
By: Adelyn Birch
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Mind Mapping
- Improve Memory, Concentration, Communication, Organization, Creativity, and Time Management
- By: Kam Knight
- Narrated by: Jim D Johnston
- Length: 5 hrs
- Unabridged
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This is a comprehensive guide to learning about a wonderful technique called mind maps. Mind maps are an amazing organizational and creativity tool that can improve memory, concentration, communication, organization, creativity, and time management.
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make sure to practice
- By Meryem on 04-24-17
By: Kam Knight
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How to Write Best-Selling Fiction
- By: James Scott Bell, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: James Scott Bell
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
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Most people think the way to write a best seller is to have a lot of talent and even more luck. As you will learn, there is a recipe for success, and luck may be the least important ingredient in creating a best seller. No one has cracked the code better than James Scott Bell. A best-selling author himself, and the author of the number-one best seller for writers, Plot & Structure, Mr. Bell has been teaching the principles of best-selling fiction for over 20 years, principles that apply to any genre or style.
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I'm a writer and this course is to blame.
- By accentrique on 07-22-19
By: James Scott Bell, and others
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Dark Alliance
- The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion
- By: Gary Webb
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 20 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In July 1995, San Jose Mercury-News reporter Gary Webb found the Big One - the blockbuster story every journalist secretly dreams about - without even looking for it. A simple phone call concerning an unexceptional pending drug trial turned into a massive conspiracy involving the Nicaraguan Contra rebels, L.A. and Bay Area crack cocaine dealers, and the Central Intelligence Agency.
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Bigger than You Thought
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By: Gary Webb
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There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather
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- By: Linda Åkeson McGurk
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Bringing Up Bébé meets Last Child in the Woods in this lively, insightful memoir about a mother who sets out to discover if the nature-centric parenting philosophy of her native Scandinavia holds the key to healthier, happier lives for her American children.
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Great concept, interesting writing.
- By Kate on 11-03-17
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English Grammar Boot Camp
- By: Anne Curzan, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Anne Curzan
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
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Grammar! For many of us, the word triggers memories of finger-wagging schoolteachers, and of wrestling with the ambiguous and complicated rules of using formal language. But what is grammar? In fact, it's the integral basis of how we speak and write. As such, a refined awareness of grammar opens a world of possibilities for both your pleasure in the English language and your skill in using it, in both speech and the written word.
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Spectacular
- By Quaker on 09-24-16
By: Anne Curzan, and others
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Easy Spanish Step-by-Step
- By: Barbara Bregstein
- Narrated by: Rachel Story
- Length: 37 hrs and 15 mins
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Easy Spanish Step-by-Step is designed in such a way that each section builds upon the last to help your brain progressively create lasting and meaningful connections to each new word and grammar concept. Simply by listening and speaking out loud with us, you will naturally progress, step-by-step, toward Spanish communication and fluency.
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Best so far . . .
- By Medusa in Akron on 07-20-21
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Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue
- The Untold History of English
- By: John McWhorter
- Narrated by: John McWhorter
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
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A survey of the quirks and quandaries of the English language, focusing on our strange and wonderful grammar. Why do we say "I am reading a catalog" instead of "I read a catalog"? Why do we say "do" at all? Is the way we speak a reflection of our cultural values? Delving into these provocative topics and more, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue distills hundreds of years of fascinating lore into one lively history.
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Great for casual linguists
- By Bertie on 01-11-10
By: John McWhorter
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What listeners say about Before and After the Book Deal
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-08-24
The best book for first-time authors
Absolutely a must-have for first-time authors. Not only insightful and honest, but fun (funny) to listen to (at times) and Courtney's a great narrator.
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- Amazon8675309
- 07-19-20
Read this newbie writers!
This book was thought provoking and thorough. A great reference for any want to be writers!
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- Patricia C Murphy
- 09-29-20
Love it!
Maum gives all the right advice with the perfect sense of humor. This makes the bad news more palatable and the good news a celebration.
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- Anonymous User
- 08-04-22
Informative!
I liked the book. The thing that kept taking me out of the book was when the author would refer to Trump a couple times. A pointless person reference for an irrelevant point to taxes. As an enrolled agent and CPA myself, I would advise that you overlook the tax portion entirely. seek that information else where. other than that... amazing book. thank you for sharing the accumulated information you have for writing and the industry.
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- Augusta Allen-Jones
- 08-07-23
My Bible!
Loved Courtney’s narration!
This book has everything you need to know about the arch of publishing your book! Right down to the snacks you’ll need along the way. All the while being humble, humorous and human! Highly, highly recommend it to any writer, new OR already published. I will return to it throughout all my writing endeavors! Thank you Ms Maum, THANK YOU!!!
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- Janina
- 12-07-24
Info I can Use Now
This author narrated book makes an important contribution to the oeuvre. I hope one day to be use the wealth of info on the real interactions with agents, editors and post publication experience.
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- angie
- 10-15-20
Best investment Ever
A gem. Practical, insightful, illuminates the business of writing that both makes me feel better for not ‘making it’ right away and fortifies me to keep trying.
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- donalurn
- 07-24-22
Useful, real information for writers.
This book is real about writing for profit. It also has enough encouragement to make the most cowardly writer feel positive. New writers get questions answered. I feel that anyone writing would benefit from this book.
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- Ludmil Mitrev
- 03-20-21
A gem for early-stage writers
Courtney Maum's latest, "Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer's Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book" is a gem of a guidebook for early stage authors who are preparing to publish. It is well-written, informative and to the point. Ms Maum is warm-hearted, generous with her advice and genuine in her desire to help fellow writers. Her reading carries the book well and her voice naturally draws you in. Moreover, she delivers her knowledge with delicate humor, and strikes a welcome balance between realism and inspiration. The book is well-researched and draws on the experiences of many an editor, publisher, agent and author, all individuals whom she interviewed for this opus. Well done, Courtney Maum, and thank you!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Michael Anson Schroeder
- 01-04-23
The Book Deal
I was afraid of this book. More specifically, I was afraid of producing a substandard work of fiction and, then, not needing this excellent work of nonfiction which navigates the publishing world so deftly. Thank God Courtney Maum saw fit to set down on paper her prescient observations regarding how to maintain sanity ‘before and after the book deal.’ For in truth, that is the true subject of her nonfiction—How not to go ‘batshit crazy’ while attempting to publish one’s first book. Many thanks, Courtney Maum.
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1 person found this helpful