Karen Moore will be at the Southern Christian Writers Conference on June 7-8, 2019 alongside her husband Bruce Barbour; the two of them will be doing workshop sessions and also meeting individually with authors looking for an agent.
Karen is an award-winning author of more than sixty books, which cover a wide range of topics and include daily devotionals and gift book formats. She is a regular author with Christians Art Gifts and has published with Simon & Schuster, Faith Words, Thomas Nelson, and Abingdon Press.
She and husband Bruce work through their Literary Management Group, Inc., a full-service literary agency and publishing consulting firm that has represented best-selling authors and properties including Zig Ziglar, Sandra Felton, and The Beginner’s Bible and consulted with publishing houses including Thomas Nelson and other large companies.
I recently had the opportunity to ask Karen a couple of questions about the agency process, and how she hopes to help writers attending the conference in Tuscaloosa.
Question: What advice would you give to someone who has written a book–or perhaps has a book idea? What steps do they need to take to find success?
Answer: I advise writers to stretch and bend and look at their ideas from every angle they possibly can. When they are done with that part of things, they should ask themselves questions about their idea, like: “What attracts me to this idea?” “Will this idea educate or inspire or motivate a reader? Will this idea stand up against some of the other works already in print? Is this a BIG idea? If the writer can answer those questions, they can build an outline and put a proposal together. After that, they can start writing!
Q: How do you help to inspire writers at the Southern Christian Writers Conference?
A: It’s hard to know what inspires one individual writer over another, but one thing I always try to remind myself and other writers about is that no matter what your experience level may be, it’s important to recognize that no one else has your voice. No one else will handle your subject matter or genre in the same way you do. It’s good to start any project by listening for God’s direction, and then write and rewrite as though you are writing for God Himself. We all need to practice our skills, keep idea notebooks, try a direction, and then try another. It’s important not to put yourself in a box. Keep moving! Writers write nearly every day! At SCWC, Bruce and I both try to inspire new ways to think about writing, and we try to turn up the light of understanding about process and how publishing really works. We hope to engage the hearts of writers to motivate their direction.
Q: Tell me a little bit about your relationship with Bruce, and how the two of you work together to help writers?
A: Bruce and I often discuss proposals that come in to his office or mine. We have different skill sets and experience with different genres. If one of us really likes an idea that comes in, but it is not our area of expertise, we’ll share that proposal with each other and discuss whether we think it is strong enough to pursue. We keep up with current market trends and since we have years of experience both inside big publishing houses, and outside as consultants, we believe we can guide writers toward greater opportunities. We’ve both been trained to take a nugget of an idea and see how it can be nurtured into a big idea. Seeing an author’s work hit the shelves and serve readers in a new way, brings us both delight.
You don’t want to miss meeting Karen–and Bruce!–at this year’s Southern Christian Writers Conference.
