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Publishing Resources Links at BookBub
Diana Urban, industry marketing manager at the self-publishing company BookBub, compiled this list of 48+ reputable vendors for every stage of book creation and marketing. Categories include developmental and copy editing, graphic design, distribution for self-published books, marketing, publishing industry news, authors' associations, and website building tools. Links are current as of 2019.
Publishing Trends
The website of Publishing Trends offers a weekly roundup of top stories from the publishing world, plus monthly updates on agents' and editors' job changes.
Purdue University Online Writing Lab
This resource portal from Purdue University in Indiana features basic exercises to learn grammar, punctuation, spelling, APA and MLA citation styles, and composing resumes and business letters.
Purity and Nonsense
This two-part essay by award-winning poet Brian Brodeur discusses the prosody of nonsense verse and compares it to other types of avant-garde art. Is it aesthetically significant, as a kind of distillation of poetry to its abstract elements of sound and rhythm, purified of "meaning"? Or is it just a sophomoric prank? Read Part 1 and Part 2 on The Best American Poetry blog.
Purple Planet Music
Purple Planet Music is an online collection of background music clips in various styles, written and performed by Chris Martyn and Geoff Harvey. The site is easy to search for the musical mood that you need for your book trailer. There are free and paid tiers, depending on the audio quality you need and how widely you plan to broadcast the music.
Q Avenue Press
Launched in 2004 by award-winning poet Curtis Bauer, Q Avenue Press publishes hand-bound chapbooks. Editors say, "We are devoted to publishing new writing, whether prose, poetry, or some combination of the two, new translations, and books that incorporate visual art with writing." Titles include 'I take back the sponge cake' by Loren Erdrich and Sierra Nelson, an illustrated poetry chapbook modeled on choose-your-own-adventure novels.
Q&A With Amy King from VIDA, Feminist Watchdog
The Riveter is a magazine of narratives and longform journalism by women. In this August 2017 piece, magazine co-founder Joanna Demkiewicz interviews poet Amy King about her work with VIDA, an organization launched in 2009 to track gender disparities in the top literary publications and book reviews. VIDA has since expanded its surveys to break down the data by race, ethnicity, sexuality/gender, disability, and neurodiversity.
Quarantine Public Library
In response to the closure of public libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic, artists Katie Garth and Tracy Honn created Quarantine Public Library, a free digital collection of mini-books by illustrators and writers. Books can be printed on one sheet of paper and folded into 8-page folios, similar to 'zines.
Quartet Journal
Launched in 2021, Quartet Journal is an online poetry journal for women writers aged 50+. See their submissions page for their reading schedule.
Queen Mob’s Tea House
Queen Mob's Tea House, affiliated with the respected cultural journal Berfrois, is an international online literary magazine for "weird, serious, gorgeous, cross genre, spell conjuring, rant inducing work." The many genres they accept include poetry, fiction, satire, sex columns, music journalism, queer translations and more.
Queer Comics Database
The Queer Comics Database is an online guide to contemporary graphic narratives with LGBTQ content or creators. It is searchable by author name, genre, ethnicity, queer identity, art style, and tone (from "action-packed" to "tranquil"). Find your next good read here.
Queer in Color
Queer in Color is a site to showcase fiction books featuring LGBTQ characters of color. The founders are romance writers but the site is open to all genres. They will add books to the website for free, and charge a small fee to promote them on social media.
Queer Indigenous Women Poets at LitHub
Award-winning Mojave poet Natalie Diaz curates this bimonthly feature of selected poems by contemporary queer indigenous women. The first installment includes work by No'u Revilla, Janet McAdams, Lehua M. Taitano, Deborah A. Miranda, and Arianne True.
Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP)
The Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP) was first launched in November 2003 in an effort to preserve queer zines and make them available to other queers, researchers, historians, punks, and anyone else who has an interest DIY publishing and underground queer communities. Browse alphabetically or search for people, places, time periods, and themes.
Querencia,
By Diana Anhalt
a word that inhabits my Spanish-speaking mouth,
lies under my tongue and smells of evergreens,
and rainy Mondays, smoke. From the word querer—
to want, desire, wish. It refers to bulls
who seek their place of solace in the ring.
For the waif in every living creature. I think
of the neighbor's dachshund hunkered under the porch,
the sparrow haunting a fallen tree, the child
afraid to stray too far from his mother's side.
We took to driving the Cuernavaca highway
and parked in the clearing with that Mexico City view.
As the air turned hazy with cigarette smoke,
we'd drink wine from the bottle, talk and listen to danzones
on the radio. We drove away soon after, took
our memories with us, haven't returned.
After years away, our key no longer fits
the lock. And our home, grown used to strangers' feet,
is home no more.
Query Shark
At the blog Query Shark, literary agent Janet Reid posts and critiques selected query letters that readers submit to her, as a teaching tool for writing a successful manuscript pitch.
QueryLetter.com
The publishing industry professionals at QueryLetter.com will write a query letter, synopsis, and outline to pitch your novel manuscript to agents and publishers. Fees are on a sliding scale based on the length of the book, e.g. $379 for a manuscript of 80-120K words (as of 2020). You can also pay to have them generate a list of agents and publishers to target, but we at Winning Writers recommend doing your own research instead.
QueryTracker
Available in both free and paid premium versions, QueryTracker features a searchable database of 1,500 literary agents and a record-keeping system for organizing your queries.
Quick Brown Fox: The Literary Journal of the Five Colleges
Editors say, "We seek to bridge the barriers between the colleges and to promote our generation's voice by providing students with space for writing, discussion, and a collaborative intellectual experience."
Quick Brown Fox: The Literary Journal of the Five Colleges
Launched in 2010, QBF publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and artwork by students at the Five Colleges in Western Massachusetts: Smith, Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and U Mass Amherst. Editors say, "We seek to bridge the barriers between the colleges and to promote our generation's voice by providing students with space for writing, discussion, and a collaborative intellectual experience."
Quiddity: International Literary Journal & Public-Radio Program
Quiddity is a literary journal published by Springfield College-Benedictine University in Illinois. Contributors to the journal may also be invited to read their work and be interviewed about the writing process on Illinois Public Radio, an NPR affiliate. Links to samples of these broadcasts are available on their website. Contributors have included Douglas A. Blackmon, Dan Guillory, and Martin Willitts, Jr.
QUILTBAG+ Speculative Classics
Writer and critic Bogi Takács highlights lost classics of queer speculative fiction in this biweekly column on the website of Tor.com, a leading publisher of diverse voices in sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. Their goal is to counteract the cultural mechanisms of erasure and suppression of minority writing. Takács explains, "QUILTBAG+ is a handy acronym of Queer, Undecided, Intersex, Lesbian, Trans, Bisexual, Asexual / Aromantic / Agender, Gay and a plus sign indicating further expansion." Launched in 2018, the column will feature pre-2010 work either by QUILTBAG+ authors (where this is known) or with QUILTBAG+ themes, with a special emphasis on identities that are less-discussed, such as trans, intersex, asexual, and bisexual writing. Read more of Takács' reviews and critical essays at Bogi Reads the World.
Quiver of Arrows: Selected Poems, 1986-2006
Intricate lyrics from the poet's eight collections marry austere classicism to sensual passion. Eros, for Phillips, is always shadowed by loss, yet for that very reason also points to a radiant, barely describable landscape beyond death, as the speaker of these poems renounces all illusions about the cost of his devotion to another man.
R.R. Bowker, the US ISBN Agency
R.R. Bowker is the authorized ISBN Agency in the United States, responsible for assigning ISBNs as well as providing information and advice on the uses of the ISBN system to publishers and the publishing industry in general. (An ISBN, or International Standard Book Number, is a 10-digit number that uniquely identifies books and book-like products published internationally.) Their website includes instructions for publishers or self-published authors to obtain an ISBN for their titles.
R.R. Bowker, the US ISBN Agency
R.R. Bowker is the authorized ISBN Agency in the United States, responsible for assigning ISBNs as well as providing information and advice on the uses of the ISBN system to publishers and the publishing industry in general. (An ISBN, or International Standard Book Number, is a 10-digit number that uniquely identifies books and book-like products published internationally.) Their website includes instructions for publishers or self-published authors to obtain an ISBN for their titles.
Radical Copyeditor
The Radical Copyeditor is a blog and editing service that keeps writers up-to-date on respectful ways to write about marginalized communities. Tips include recognizing biased reporting, a style guide for referring to transgender and nonbinary people, and unpacking the politics behind buzzwords like "alt-right" and "politically correct".
Ragged Sky Press
Ragged Sky Press was founded in 1992 by poet and publisher Ellen Foos of Princeton, NJ, and publishes quality works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. See website for submission guidelines for their themed anthologies. Authors in their catalog include Elizabeth Socolow, Anca Vlasopolos, and Carlos Hernández Peña.
Rain Gives
By Carol Smallwood
remembrance of floating—
the illusion encouraged by people
under umbrellas, huddled in cars,
part of the whole yet separate.
Grass turns so green it hurts the eye;
sidewalk cracks fill to water weeds.
My umbrella the color of skin gives
rain a voice: thunder assures you
are not alone.
Rainbow Book List
Launched in 2008, the Rainbow Book List is the American Library Association's annual recommendations of LGBTQ books. A related project of the ALA's Rainbow Round Table is GLBT Reviews, a book review blog.
Random House Canada
Random House Canada announced in 2023 that they would be open year-round to unagented submissions of adult fiction manuscripts from authors who are LGBTQ, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous or People of Color), and other under-represented communities. Editors say, "Our hope is that this will go a small way toward removing some of the barriers that have existed for writers developing their craft outside of traditional avenues of literary exposure. In particular, our editors are looking for high quality commercial fiction in the following genres: literary, romance, speculative fiction, historical fiction, and mystery. Please note that we do not currently accept screenplays, stage plays, young adult fiction, children's fiction, or picture book queries." No strict length limits; novels are typically 70,000-100,000 words. Follow formatting guidelines on website to submit your query letter, synopsis, and opening chapters by email.
Rare Children’s Books Digital Archive at the Library of Congress
To celebrate the centennial of Children's Book Week in 2019, the US Library of Congress has made available a free digital collection of 100+ out-of-print, public-domain children's books from before 1924. These historically significant works include examples of the work of American illustrators such as W.W. Denslow, Peter Newell, and Howard Pyle, as well as works by renowned English illustrators Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane, and Kate Greenaway.
Rattle Poetry Book Reviews
As of 2022, the widely distributed journal Rattle: Poetry for the 21st Century is open to insightful and entertaining reviews of contemporary poetry books for their monthly online column. Reviews should be at least 1,000 words and include actual analysis of the text. Accepted authors will receive $200.
Rattle Young Poets Anthology
Rattle: Poetry for the 21st Century is a well-regarded literary journal that produces this annual anthology of writing by young people. The editors select the top 52 poems from thousands of submissions from all over the world. Entrants must have been age 15 or younger when the poem was written, and 18 or younger when submitted. See website for guidelines, privacy protections, and online submission form.
Raving Dove
Online literary journal dedicated to sharing thought-provoking writing, photography, and art that opposes the use of violence as conflict resolution, and embraces the intrinsic themes of peace and human rights. Also features a good list of links to humanitarian organizations.
Rawboned
Rawboned publishes flash fiction and nonfiction, poetry, and hybrids up to 750 words. The magazine is published monthly online, and the editors' favorites are reprinted in a biannual print journal. They offer a weekly Twitter micro-essay contest and an annual themed flash fiction and essay contest with cash prizes. Their motto is "the marrow of the story".
Readerly Privilege and Textual Violence: An Ethics of Engagement
In this 2017 essay from the LA Review of Books blog, widely published poet and critic Kristina Marie Darling advises reviewers how to be mindful of privilege and subjectivity when critiquing a poetry book, particularly one by a less-established author. She warns against inferring psychological or autobiographical details from authors' published work. The essay contends that the best reviews are those that situate the book in its own aesthetic tradition and point the book toward the audience most likely to appreciate it.
Reading Well for Children Booklist
Reading Well, a project of The Reading Agency in the UK, recommends books to help you understand and manage your health and wellbeing. Their booklist for children features titles aimed at ages 7-11 on topics such as anxiety, mindfulness, emotional regulation, bereavement, bullying, and having a disability.
Reads Rainbow
Launched in 2018, Reads Rainbow is a blog that highlights new LGBTQ books, comics, TV shows, and movies. Search by genre, queer identity, or ethnicity.
Recommended Law Firm: Bird & Bird
Offices in London, Brussels, Hong Kong, Paris, Stockholm and The Hague. Bird & Bird rescued the URL of The Poetry Society when it was snapped up by a commercial firm. They also have copyright expertise and were recently successful in the High Court acting on behalf of the estate of James Joyce in a copyright infringement case against Macmillan Publishers. The latter had published a "reader's edition" of Ulysses. Ask for Jane Mutimear, intellectual property and Internet expert, jane.mutimear@twobirds.com.
Reconstructed Happiness
By Trish Hopkinson
Perpetually,
I am fleeing.
Perpetually,
I am my typewriter.
I am green.
I am my childhood.
I am wonder.
I am the dream
of innocence in Wonderland
and I am Tom Sawyer
and I am birth, music, sound
and I am reconstructed
happiness, the storms of life
and eternal life discovered.
I am anxiously new.
I am like rain
and I am the earth
and I am salvation waiting
to be called.
I am perpetually new again.
I am the channel.
Really, I am.
I am the state of revival,
a birth of wonder—
perpetually, I am.
I am anarchy.
I am waiting to up and fly.
I am a new discovery.
I wail.
I am someone
and I am,
I am waiting.
—a found poem in reverse of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "I Am Waiting"
Originally published by Silver Birch Press
Recovering the Lost Joy of Poetry Games
This essay by poet Marcus Goodyear from the magazine Books & Culture celebrates the playful spirit in poetry and contends that it can be a necessary leaven for poems that address difficult themes.
Red
Lesbian poet's first collection moves easily between the erotic and the elegiac in a voice that is fresh and wide-open as her Cape Cod landscape. Braverman invites the reader into a community of friends and lovers who embrace life despite the risk of loss. Elegantly designed by Perugia Press, this book won their 2002 contest as well as the Publishing Triangle Audre Lorde Poetry Prize.
Red Blues
By K.A. Jagai
I
My father was not the oldest,
but he was the brightest
boy and so he was sent first
to America. Despite how far
he crawls from Guyana
he will never scrape the wet
earth roads from his feet,
never scrub his pink tongue
of coolie colloquialism.
When I pass down stories
of a back home I have never seen,
my tongue slips quickly
into Caribbean. My father,
terrified of himself, still says
close the lights and tirty tird.
He is a staunch republican.
He once refused to hire a Trini
temp because she had heard
it hiding behind sharp white
enamel, too. How dare she, he asked
my mother. How dare she?
II
My family came here as
paper sons and through air-
ports requiring cash
in brown paper bags
my mother borrowed to save
a thankless man's brothers.
My mother's hands, a long
fingered daughter of those who fled
burning torches of red
revolution. She did not ask
for much. A loving man. A man
who would give up everything
as her father, and his father before
him, all the way up the chain—
a long line of noble Chinese men.
My mother was born in China-
town. New York City is all
the home she knows. They call
her zuk-sing, empty shell,
Chinese on the outside and
hollow within. She was
gentrified out of Brooklyn last
year—rising rents and Rag
and Bone encroaching, slowly,
slowly, she watches as the stores
filled with pastries and duck
hanging neck-wrung in clouded
windows falls away, replaced
by sleek NYU façades and
rowdy bars. She takes my white
midwestern girlfriend by the hand
and points: Look, there. Do
you see? It's all gone.
III
Here is the beautiful
thing about being a
child bridging worlds
you don't know: the women
are strong in all the same ways,
and yet carry their wrinkles
like maps. Here is where I
fought a brawling student
off with words. He had a cutlass.
I was pregnant, the size
of a planet. I contained the
world and more within me,
and I won. By God, I won.
Here is where I fought a man
who wanted to take from me
what was not his to take. I
was fifteen. Here is the scar
I saw in a young boy's side
left from a knife brawl.
New York was different then.
It wasn't safe for us.
IV
But is it safe for us, now,
I want to ask them.
My mother's missing finger-
tip tells no tales. She is voting
for Hillary. She is sick of white
men ruining everything all
of the time. She wants
a better life for herself.
She does not think of dying brown
children in far-off lands. She is too
fearful for her own son, of his being
shot to care about the abstract.
What do you have against
allies? a white girl asks
in an online forum.
Nothing, I do not say to her.
I have nothing against
your empathy at all.
Red Stag Fulfillment’s List of 85 Free Stock Photo Resources
Red Stag Fulfillment is a popular e-commerce fulfillment company, helping web-based businesses track orders and deliver products. In this 2017 article, they offer brief reviews of 85 sites for finding stock photos for your blog, online store, or promotional materials.
Redheaded Stepchild
The biannual online journal Redheaded Stepchild only accepts poetry that was rejected by other magazines. During the months of February and August, submit 3-5 unpublished poems that have been rejected elsewhere, with the names of the magazines that rejected the poems. They do not want multiple submissions, so please wait for a response to your first submission before you submit again.
Reedsy on Author Scams and Publishing Companies to Avoid
Reedsy is an online author community that helps writers connect with editors, designers, reviewers, and marketing professionals. This article on the Reedsy blog provides a good overview of literary scams and how to avoid them. Topics include traditional versus vanity presses, warning signs of a scam contest, and finding a reputable agent.
Reedsy’s 50 Best Writing Websites of 2023
Publishing-services company Reedsy names its favorite sites for the inspiration and business of writing, in this list updated in 2023. Included are sites for self-publishing guidance and services, finding agents, craft advice, industry news, and scam-busting.
Reedsy’s Best Book Review Blogs of 2017
Reedsy is a networking and resource site for book marketing. This curated list features 174 book review blogs that were active as of 2017, searchable by genre and openness to indie books (self-published and print-on-demand).
Reformation
By Thea Biesheuvel
A mighty fortress, in her chair
my mother sits, exists
within her room, her square.
She chats about her skin, her hair,
the home she missed
when this became her Unit.
Her unitary state approved,
though she's the keystone of our arc.
could never be extracted. She's removed.
The solitary matriarch.
The strength comes from within, her base
our family tree of old,
possession still of her antiques, kind face,
a stubborn faith, foreign Dutch place,
some chairs, bed-end, papers with mould
piled up where they might fit.
Things not for use, or not for her
a stack of memories, an image,
a way things never were
while she was still that personage.
Her children's kids provide a cause
of satisfaction, or disdain
their gifts, a 'lekker koekie', the silent pause
when they don't come, the source
of casual pleasure or deep pain
though this she won't admit.
Her photos serve as proof complete
that once she was, had once a life
and house, real bricks and mortar in a street,
was once a valued wife.
As chaff before a breeze she's blown
away from usefulness and roots.
Her house pulled down, her children grown.
Walled off from life, she sits alone
with memories her servants; idly puts
another bouquet near the bed-side phone.
Between the present and those gone she flits;
A mighty fortress once, now just a ruin.
The ancient landscape of her life befits
the castle of a queen deposed too soon.
Reincarnation
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson
An impossible moth,
dark eye at its center, opaque
helicopter blades buzz and blur,
a dervish I did not invite. The tiny
guest perches on a garland, twigs tied
with a raffia bow, as if it had found
a home. I see it now, blue-black hummer,
scarlet stripes, despite its size a beak
like a blade. He quivers, weak,
from flight. I wince each time he launches,
hits a wall, instead of following
light to safety. I slide open windows,
doors, so this humming thing
can find the sky. How do you benevolently
tame fright? A towel might
be a tender snare but cannot capture him
within its folds. He whips wings past
my rafters once again. Finally both
of us tire. Dead, he topples
to the floor, limp, warm, one eye
a foil bead. I carry him to my garden,
find a vibrant coffin—tiger lily I've seen
him pierce before—place him beak
first within the petals, orange throat,
last supper this final sip of nectar. He, alive
again, flits away.