Today we’re delighted to welcome Emily Rodmell, an editor at Harlequin. If you’ve ever dreamed of writing for Harlequin, then be sure to keep reading. She’s got some great tips for you!
Good morning everyone. I’m Emily Rodmell, and I’m the associate editor for Harlequin’s 3 Love Inspired lines (Love Inspired, Love Inspired Suspense and Love Inspired Historical). I’m here today to talk to you about the great opportunity we have at Love Inspired Historical for new writers. LIH doubled its output from two to four books a month this year, and it’s opened up a whole lot of opportunity for new writers looking to get published. Since the expansion, we’ve published 9 new to LIH authors (many of them debut authors), and we currently have 10 more scheduled to publish by the end of 2012.
If you’re an aspiring historical writer, we’d love for you to submit to us. We’re looking for historical romance novels of 70-75K words and are open to any time period prior to World War II. Westerns are our bread and butter, but we also are excited about the variety of other time periods and settings we have in the schedule: Regency, missionaries in Africa, Scottish, Roman Empire, Amish and many more. The sky’s the limit. We’re looking for great stories, well told. Catch our attention with a great opening and make us not be able to put the book down. The best advice I can give to aspiring writers is to read books the line publishes to get a feel for what we’re buying. If you want to check out the newest LIH debut authors to see what caught our eyes, here are some suggestions:
The Reluctant Outlaw by Karen Kirst
The Aristocrat’s Lady by Mary Moore
Unlawfully Wedded Bride by Noelle Marchand
Submitting is easy. Check out our guidelines here: http://www.harlequin.com/articlepage.html?articleId=1186&chapter=0 and then submit to my attention or to any of the other LIH editors by mailing a query to one of us at 233 Broadway, Suite 1001 New York, NY 10279. We require a full manuscript from unpublished authors or a synopsis and three chapters from published authors. If you have any questions, I’m happy to answer. You can find me on Twitter (@EmilyRodmell) or on the Harlequin message boards (http://community.eharlequin.com/forums/love-inspired/editors-corner-chat-emily-rodmell). I hope to see submissions from all of you.