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Angela James

Join my newsletter for publishing, writing and marketing tips and advice! Angela James (she/her) is a #1 New York Times bestselling fiction freelance editor and author career coach, and has enjoyed two decades in genre fiction publishing. She's edited bestselling books and authors, including the #1 New York Times bestselling Paper Princess by Erin Watt, as well as hundreds of other authors such as Mariah Stewart, Shelly Laurenston/G.A. Aiken, A.C. Arthur, Jaci Burton, Ilona Andrews, Alexa Riley, Lilith Saintcrow, Josh Lanyon, K.A. Mitchell, Shannon Stacey, and more. She is also the creator of Before You Hit Send: a popular online self-editing and writing workshop as well as Book Boss: From Written to Recommended, a supportive and growing author community. For more information about Angela’s freelance editorial and consulting services visit angelajames.co.

Featured Post

You're not bad at publishing (I promise!)

Hey Reader,, There's no shortage of advice for authors. Facebook groups, Reddit threads, YouTube videos. In fact, information about publishing is everywhere, it's free, and a lot of it sounds pretty reasonable. Sometimes it all sounds reasonable. Maybe too reasonable? Not only that, but there's also no shortage of people promising you that if you "just do this one thing" or "do it this exact way" or spend money to just "use FB or Amazon ads" or "let me show you exactly how I did it" you'll...

Hey Reader, Popping in to your inbox to tell you that my very favorite thing in my whole business, The Acknowledgments, is open for enrollment. If you've been waiting for this, thank you, hi! It's time! If you haven't been waiting for this because you didn't know it was the thing you needed, totally okay too. I hope you'll consider checking out this community, because it truly is one of my favorite places to spend time, and I think it can become yours too. Here's what I want you to know...

Hey Reader, I had a whole email ready to go for today and I guess I accidentally deleted it? I was writing it on my computer in Notepad and I closed the tab without saving because I thought I had it saved somewhere else but...apparently not? Oops. Dammit! I'm sure it was a great email, and I know I shared a story, but I wrote it earlier this week and I absolutely couldn't remember what I wrote. This is why, when I have newsletter ideas, I dictate them right away into my notes. Because my ADHD...

Hey Reader, It's been quiet in these newsletter parts but we've just dusted off the weekly Editing Espresso and Angela's Advice sequences so those will be starting up again, plus I'll be sending regular weekly emails again. First thing to share: I unexpectedly have a last-minute opening for an editing project either end of March or early April, due to a scheduled project moving into August. If you've been procrastinating booking edits, this is your sign. Of course I'm open to romance,...

Hey Reader, I've been a little quiet here on my newsletter list because I've been head down, working on deadlines and on this fun thing I wanted to get finished! If you're new here, and many of you are, welcome! While it's been quiet on the newsletter front the past month, I'm getting ready to dive back into newsletters, and I wanted to start by giving you something (I think) is super useful and fun. Sometimes writing/publishing feels like you’re standing in the middle of a kitchen with 47...

Hey Reader, (And if you're a new subscriber via Facebook, welcome. I wanted to make sure you got this info about the free webinar today!) Here’s something I see all the time with authors: They want to skip ahead to the publishing good part, the dream (whatever that dream is for you). Unfortunately, publishing doesn't come with a remote you can press fast forward on. You can’t skip stages in an author career. Sure, you can go through some of them more quickly, but you're not skipping stages....

Hey there! (Welcome to new subscribers. I wasn't going to include you on this email so you didn't get overwhelmed by first day email, but I thought you might want to know about this, since it's free and it's happening tomorrow!) Here’s something I wish more authors were told early on: Success isn't going to look the same at every stage of an author career. A lot of frustration comes from using the wrong scoreboard. For example: If you’re still writing or revising your first book, success...

Hi friends, Thank you for all the lovely replies to yesterday’s email. I do want to address one thing: A few of you said you almost didn’t email me because you didn’t want to crowd my inbox. It’s totally okay to respond to my emails. I don’t always have time to respond or respond immediately, but I do read all your replies and I appreciate them. You can always email me :) Now, let’s talk about overwhelm. Something that I see regularly when working with authors, at any stage of their career,...

Hey there, I don’t know about you, but right now, I’m screaming on the inside. It would probably be pretty easy for that to be actually screaming, and I may go scream at the ocean this weekend, but for now, I’m trying to hold it together. Things are feeling pretty damn heavy, friends, and trying to go about living life and doing business is a struggle. So I’ve been dithering around with sending emails and sharing things, but one of the things I always tell the authors in my communities:...

Hey Reader, I’m bringing back one of the most helpful frameworks I teach, something authors who've attended in the past have loved, and it's freeeee! On Wednesday, January 14 at 6:00 PM Eastern, I’ll be hosting: Find Your Stage: The 5 Stages of Your Author Career (And What to Do at Each One) This one-hour webinar exists for one reason: to help writers who are overwhelmed by publishing figure out what stage of their career they're in, and where they should spend the majority of their energy...