Our sincere congratulations!

Our sincere congratulations to the Hartline founder and principal agent Joyce Hart on being named one of three finalists for the prestigious Agent of the Year Award given by the American Christian Fiction Writers.





Joyce has been a literary agent since 1992. She was formerly the vice president of marketing of an inspirational publishing company and as the president of Hartline Marketing has nearly thirty three years of successful experience marketing and promoting books. Joyce has been a pioneer in selling high quality fiction to the inspirational market and has built an excellent rapport with leading inspirational publishers. A member of ACFW, and the National Association of Professional Women, Joyce is a graduate of Open Bible College, Des Moines, IA now merged with Eugene Bible College in Eugene, Oregon. Joyce is based at Hartline Literary's Pittsburgh headquarters.

We also offer congratulations to the other two finalists, Rachelle Gardner and Mary Sue Seymour. The winner will be announced and the award will be presented at the Annual Conference of ACFW in St Louis in September.

Hartline adds an in-house publicist

We are pleased to announce that Jennifer Hudson Taylor has joined us here at Hartline in the role of in-house publicist and PR/marketing advisor to our clients.

Here at Hartline, we have been discussing what changes we might make to better position ourselves in this constantly changing industry. Now seems to be the time to move forward and make some of them. Jennifer Hudson Taylor is joining the agency as In-house Publicist and PR/Marketing advisor. Jennifer has been a publicist for a big non-profit agency for many years and is already making a major impact advising our clients on the steps and actions from contract to book-on-the-shelf that publishers want and expect from authors today. If there are steps the clients don’t feel they can do themselves, she has set up a company outside of the agency where they can contract for some of these things to be done for them at very reasonable rates.

Hartline has also set up a special online group Hartline clients only can access (the ones that wish to). In this group clients share in discussion their PR and marketing efforts (with input from Jennifer) as to what is working and not working, as well as share ideas on what they might want to try. In today’s publishing environment where advances are smaller or in many cases nonexistent, it is important to us and to our authors to maximize the royalties from their projects.

Joyce is interviewing to replace Tamela at the agency and while we are at it adding more than one agent may be in the cards. At present we have the main office in Pittsburgh PA with a field office in Amarillo TX and in Kannapolis NC. We are considering field offices in different parts of the country to make it easier to interface with regional writer’s groups. Stay tuned for more information on this process.

The ebook market is exploding and we are taking steps to assist our clients in taking advantage of the opportunities being offered.

We are increasing our contact with the movie industry, particularly Christian Film companies and are exploring more opportunities for our clients in this area.

These are just the beginning steps. Stay tuned as we evaluate and do some restructuring. Exciting things are on the way.

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Interview with Linda Rondeau- Creator of Pentalk- an online community of writers

With authors seeking more ways to network and share information, diverse creative sites pop up. I would like to share one that is relatively new, created by author Linda Rondeau titled, Pentalk.

Linda , Thank you for being with us today. Can you share with our readers today just what Pentalk is and where you came up with the idea for it.

I noticed that there are myriad writing groups for various genres, beliefs, and age groups. The Lord seemed to ask me if I would start a writing group that would encompass all genres, ages, and belief systems, an arena where Christians could exemplify Christ as they worked together with other writers who may not be believers.

How has it's Growth been and the response on FB to it.

From an initial small group page, Pentalk now consists of a Facebook Community Page of over 200 members, a Facebook networking page of 121, a Yahoo group page for non-Facebook members and a blog, currently with 84 followers, some through Google and others through Facebook. We have a steering committee of four individuals in addition to myself. Carol McClain and Dale Langlois manage the author interviews, Carol Moncado is the editor-in-chief for the blog. Dan Waltz manages our book cover album in addition to art consultation.

Have you had to make any changes to it since you first began?

The group evolved through the needs of its members. Some wanted more than simply a "chat" forum. The community page offers a more professional setting and can be joined by simply "liking" the page. We soon learned that members wanted information and education so we formed the blog. We also wanted to have a communication avenue for non-facebook users. Pentalk is for and about writing by writers. We are committed to helping one another as writers. This includes sharing our blogs, giving encouragement, and posting our celebrations.

Pentalk Community Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pentalk/177705922240597?ref=ts

Pentalk Group (facebook) http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_138295856220115&ref=ts

Pentalk Community Blog: http://pentalkcommunity.blogspot.com/

Pentalk Community (Yahoo Groups): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pentalkcommunity/

For more information, contact Linda Rondeau (lrondeau@westelcom.com).

Thank you Linda for sharing with us today.
Please stop by and avail yourself of the terrific resources and advice on Pentalk.
Happy Spring to all,
Diana

CHRISTIAN WRITERS GUILD ACQUIRES SALLY STUART’S CHRISTIAN WRITERS’ MARKET GUIDE

Rush to Press announced Feb 28th;

As of March 1, the Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild will have acquired Sally Stuart’s Christian Writers Market Guide, the annual comprehensive resource guide offering up-to-date information on the Christian publishing industry. Stuart’s annual publication, now in its 26th year, has become a reliable source for the critical information needed by those seeking to publish their work in the Christian community. The resource will still be published by Tyndale House, but with the 2012 edition will change its title to The Christian Writer’s Market Guide and the byline will switch from Sally Stuart to Jerry B. Jenkins.

“Sally Stuart is an old friend and colleague who has set the bar high for this guide for more than a quarter century,” says Jenkins. “Our hope at the Christian Writers Guild is to do justice to her legacy and continue to provide this most helpful resource for writers.”

Christian Writers’ Market Guide offers tips and ideas for Christian writers and includes contact information, pay rates, submission guidelines for more than 400 book publishers, 600 periodicals and websites as well as information on hundreds of literary agents, contests, conferences and editorial services.

Jenkins also announces that Kerma Murray, former operations director of the Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild, will be the point person for the market guide, as well as for the recently acquired Word Weavers local critique groups. She will manage these operations in her new role as special assistant to the owner.

The Christian Writers Guild was founded in 1965 by Norm Rohrer. Jenkins purchased the organization in 2003 and moved its offices to Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Christian Writers Guild offers training to aspiring and working writers through e-mail courses, conferences, contests, mentors and peer groups.

For more information, visit www.christianwritersguild.com or www.jerryjenkins.com.