Writing is a solitary profession. If you have a novel in process or are one of the estimated 8 million people who have a novel in their desk drawer, where do you turn for professional help? (This 8 million number is in Get Published! page 64).

In this entry, I want to suggest a free resource for anyone who is working on a novel or already publishing a novel. In the mid-90s, literary agent Donald Maass wrote an excellent book, The Career Novelist: A Literary Agent Offers Strategies for Success which is still listed on Amazon. Maass offers a free download of the book in a PDF format on his web site.

In the book, he explains his purpose for this book, "If this book is about nothing else, it is about the practical, day-to-day solutions, methods, and techniques that I use to make my clients' careers happen. This book is the fruit of seventeen years on the job, of thousands of battles fought in the trenches. It is about marketing, contracts, hidden traps, strategies that work, ways writers go wrong—in short, everything I can think of that you might need to make you