Artist, Filmmaker, Playwright & Author Jonathan Ashley

Jonathan Ashley is an author, playwright, concept artist, and filmmaker from Arizona. At fifteen, he illustrated his first book, Mathematickle, written by his grandfather. He studied filmmaking and animation at New York University. His illustrations and designs have been featured in films, commercials, comic books, and puppet shows. He lives with his wife and daughter in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge, on the Brooklyn side. He is also the author of Lily & Kosmo in Outer Outer Space in which to join Kosmo's "Spacetronauts," an all-boy crew of child space cadets, aboard their floating tree house in the stars, a girl from Brooklyn must prove that she can hold her own among the galaxy's unruliest rascals…along the way, she and another will evade the clutches of merciless minions, find themselves marooned in The Murky Way nebula, and ultimately face the vilest villain of all, "His Meanness" The Mean-Man of Morgo.

Author Brand Developer, Passionate Advocate & Innovator Trident Media Group Chairman Robert Gottlieb

Robert Gottlieb is the Chairman of Trident Media Group, book publishing’s number one ranked literary agency for North American sales for well over a decade in consecutive years. In 2000, he founded Trident Media Group with the goal of bringing an innovative approach to book publishing. That approach includes a uniquely organized company that not only delivers the highest level author management in the industry but also provides unique marketing dynamics for an author’s career in a very competitive marketplace. Robert Gottlieb’s leading position in the literary agency business gives him access to all the decision makers in publishing at all levels including media firms around the world. He has worked with many New York Times bestselling authors and is skilled at launching authors’ careers. Robert Gottlieb focuses on maximizing and establishing his authors’ brands on a worldwide basis. When negotiating deals he seeks to retain as many rights as possible, including foreign rights, film/TV rights, and audio rights, to ensure the author’s benefits extend beyond their domestic publishing arrangements. Trident’s robust Foreign Rights departmentthen sells these titles at the London Book Fair and Frankfurt Book Fair and continues a year-round effort of constant contact with foreign publishers to ensure substantial foreign deals. Robert Gottlieb also places a high focus on marketing and works with Trident’s dedicated marketing team to ensure his authors reach the widest audience possible. He is devoted to his authors’ careers and can guarantee he will advocate for them at every stage of the publishing process.

Mark GottliebFebruary 25, 2019robertgottlieb, tridentmediagroup, literaryagency, LiteraryAgent, markgottliebliteraryagentComment

Growing Up With a Prophecy: Destined to Be an Author

Some authors know early on that they are destined to become writers. For me, it was my mom who knew that I was going to be a writer before I ever picked up a pen. But growing up, there were few indications to support her conviction.

powerHouse Books Founder/Publisher & NY Photo Fest Co-Founder Daniel Power

Daniel Power is the CEO of powerHouse Books, POW! Kids Books, powerHouse Packaging & Supply. He is the proprietor of The POWERHOUSE Arena & POWERHOUSE on 8th. Daniel Power is also the director & co-founder The New York Photo Festival.

Simpsons Artist & Slothilda Author Dante Fabiero

Dante Fabiero is a Los Angeles native who has made a career working on some of TV's most popular animated shows, such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, King of The Hill, American Dad, Disenchantment and Cosmos, seen on Netflix, TBS, and Fox. Fabiero launched Slothilda in 2014 and has garnered close to half a billion views on the website Giphy. You can see Slothilda come to life and subscribe to receive future comics for free at slothilda.com.

The Best Articles Are Only Two Lines Long

Chances are you won’t reach the end of this blog. That’s a bit sad, but it’s not really my fault. Because it seems, at least according to a recent study by Microsoft, that the average human being now has an attention span of… just eight seconds.

Mark GottliebJanuary 21, 2019markgottliebliteraryagent, TridentMediaGroupComment

Bestselling Author of Historical Fiction Jane Healey

Jane Healey left a career in high tech to become a freelance writer. Her passion for historical fiction became her new career when her debut novel, The Saturday Evening Girls Club, was published in 2017. Based on the true story of a group of Jewish and Italian immigrant women in Boston’s North End at the turn of the twentieth century, the Amazon bestseller was hailed by Redbook as “a breathtaking ode to female empowerment and the American dream.” With the release of The Beantown Girls, she continues to fulfill her dream of writing about lesser-known stories of women in American history. She shares a home north of Boston with her husband, two daughters, and two cats, and when she’s not writing, she enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, running, cooking, and going to the beach.

First Impressions Are Everything: Using Social Media Banners to Promote Books

They say not to judge a book by its cover, but people often do, and that's one of the reasons why first impressions will likely leave a lasting impression. Why else would stores such as Macy's make elaborate storefront arrangements? It's often to draw customers into the store.

Social Media Sensation & Comedy Author James Breakwell

James Breakwell is a comedy writer and father of four girls, best known for his humorous Twitter account @XplodingUnicorn, which has over one million followers and became a viral internet sensation. Buzzfeed dubbed him “The Funniest Dad on Twitter.” Breakwell also writes a parenting column for the IndyStar, where he antagonizes overachieving parents everywhere. His first book, Only Dead on the Inside: A Parent's Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse, provides practical advice on how to raise happy, healthy children in the midst of the zombie apocalypse. Breakwell followed up with Bare Minimum Parenting: The Ultimate Guide to Not Quite Ruining Your Child, a slacker's guide to raising slackers. Forthcoming from Breakwell is a duology of interactive/guided journals, Prance Like Nobody’s Watching: How to Live Like an Exploding Unicorn (Little Bee Books), containing a mix of his signature tweets and webcomics. Also forthcoming is How to Save Your Child from Ostrich Attacks, Accidental Time Travel, and Anything Else that Might Happen on an Average Tuesday (BenBella Books), moving beyond reanimated corpses to tackle roughly 100 survival challenges parents encounter in their everyday lives, an essential guide for anyone who has children, might have children someday, or is vaguely aware children exist.

New Year's Resolutions for Writers

It’s fun to talk about how this year, in 2019, we’ll be writing every day and only taking breaks to market ourselves and our work on social media. It’s fun to talk about how this year, unlike all the other years, we’re going to read every classic we’ve been putting off, along with all the books by our friends and colleagues. (We’ll review all those books, too, and promote them, and not be jealous of the success of others… right?)

Writing AdviceMark GottliebJanuary 4, 2019writinginspiration, writinggoals, MarkGottlieb, LiteraryAgent, TridentMediaGroupComment

TEDx Speaker, MOTH Slam-winner & UCB Comedian Author Ruby Karp

Ruby Karp (pictured right with Tina Fey) is a comedian and journalist. She has spoken about feminism on Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls at the Party and at TEDx. She regularly performs at the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater. Karp has written for Hello Giggles, Mashable, The Mindhut and Bustle. She has an advice column on SparkNotes called Ask Ruby. Karp has spoken at the United Nations as a Dove spokesperson, discussed the importance of self-esteem at the It's Our Turn: the Young Women's Conference, has been at panelist at BookCon with Tavi Gevinson, has won a MOTH Slam and was named one of the most successful teens of this generation by Seventeen and Cosmo. Karp was a speaker at StuVoice Live, an organization dedicated to students taking charge of their education. She worked with Kit-Kat to film a short on herself about how she uses her “break-time” better. She has been featured on shows like MSNBC, NBC, HuffPost Live. Karp made her viral debut at the age of four in Human Giant, and has since been a staple at UCB shows like Broad City Live, The Chris Gethard Hour, and ASSSSCAT among many others. She is also the author of Earth Hates Me: True Confessions from a Teenage Girl. The book is considered the handy Lean In for the Rookie generation, on what it's like to be inside a teen's mind, how social media impacts a teenager and what all their "angst" is really about, from an actual teenager offering life lessons.

Edgar Award-winning & Internationally Bestselling Author Andrew Klavan

Award-winning author, screenwriter and media commentator Andrew Klavan is the author of such internationally bestselling novels as True Crime, filmed by Clint Eastwood, and Don’t Say A Word, filmed and starring Michael Douglas. Klavan has been nominated for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award five times and has won twice. His books have been translated around the world. He was dubbed by Stephen King: “The most original American novelist of crime and suspense since Cornell Woolrich.” Klavan is a contributing editor to City Journal, the magazine of the Manhattan Institute. His essays and op-eds on politics, religion, movies and literature have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times and elsewhere. Klavan is a frequent media guest on television and radio stations from coast to coast, where he is known for his quick wit, humor and commentary on politics and entertainment. He currently hosts the podcast The Andrew Klavan Show on the Daily Wire and his political satire videos have been viewed tens of millions of times. As a screenwriter, Andrew wrote the screenplay to 1990’s A Shock to the System, which starred Michael Caine, and to 2008’s One Missed Call, which stars Ed Burns and Shannyn Sossamon. He lives in Southern California. He has also written a memoir, The Great Good Thing: A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ.

Author InterviewMark GottliebDecember 30, 2018AndrewKlavan, TurnerPublishing, AnotherKingdom, MarkGottlieb, TridentMediaGroup, LiteraryAgentComment

Literary Mad Man & Famed Tattoo Artist Jonathan Shaw

Jonathan Shaw is the first tattoo artist to appear on The Tonight Show with David Letterman. His likeness was depicted by Pulitzer Prize-winning artist Art Spiegelman on the cover of The New Yorker. Shaw is also the son of legendary Swing-era bandleader Artie Shaw. Jonathan Shaw also played the tattooed thug opposite Clint Eastwood in the movie Tightrope (1984). He founded the magazine International Tattoo Art and his recent visual exploration of tattoo art, Vintage Tattoo Flash II has become a mainstay of collectors of tattoo art. Shaw's long-awaited memoir-style novel, Scab Vendor: Confessions of a Tattoo Artist was hailed by Jerry Stahl as "...beautiful as a dead drunk's bible..." and its sequel Homeward Bound was recently released to much acclaim. Shaw also made headline news as the infamous "tattoo artist to the stars" indicted by a New York City Grand Jury and charged with eighty-nine felony counts of illegal weapons possession. Described by Iggy Pop as, “the great nightmare anti-hero of the New Age,” Shaw's tattoo client list included names like Johnny Depp, The Cure, The Velvet Underground, The Ramones, Marilyn Manson, Jim Jarmusch, Joe Coleman, Kate Moss, Orlando Bloom and Tupac Shakur. Jonathan Shaw is still one of the most respected names in the tattoo profession today for being instrumental in pioneering the tattoo industry.

The Part of the Equation Writers Cannot Afford to Miss

As writers, most of us have a vision of the perfect writer’s world—we sit on the deck of a charming bungalow, overlooking some untouched tropical paradise, while we pound out bestsellers before we hit the beach. We drop the finished manuscript in the mail, our literary agent takes it from there, and the checks roll in while we decide whether or not to do Oprah or go surfing—we opt for surfing—our agent will handle things with Oprah.

What Happens After You Find a Literary Agent?

If you’re like me, you often see articles about what it takes to land a literary agent in today’s crowded world of publishing, and to be blunt, much of the advice is the same. Be patient. Persevere. And don’t forget to have a fully complete and well-polished manuscript, an amazing, attention-grabbing query letter, and an awesome hook that no one can deny. And while all of that is well and good (and not all that easy to accomplish), what you don’t seem to find is many articles that speak to what happens after you get an offer of representation from an agent, and what you, the would-be published author, can expect out of the experience.

Brexit Impacts UK Publishing & the Pound

The tensions leading up to Brexit have caused uncertainty among U.S. and foreign publishers from around the world in regard to the state of book publishing in the United Kingdom. Brexit has been driving down the value of the pound due to uncertainty from markets such as the European Union. While UK publishers remain hopeful of what might result from Brexit, many publishers and literary agencies throughout the rest of the world are beginning to question the UK-EU book trade distribution agreements that might come apart at the seams.

The Unexpected Importance of Author Email Signatures

I’m back today to discuss how authors can use the signature line in their email correspondences to continually promote their publications in a form of passive email marketing. Using an email signature line is specifically a great way to promote an author’s writing to all those they correspond with in everyday emails to friends, family or colleagues. Signature lines in email can automatically populate below a new email’s text, based on email signature settings, or can manually be pasted in every time an email is sent.

Using Google News Alerts to Grow an Author's Career

Welcome to my first blog post on Talking Books with Literary Agent Mark Gottlieb! I've created this blog as a way to share helpful tips and tools with authors to grow their online presence. For this first post, I'd like to focus on one of the many methods I use with my book publishing clients to help further grow their careers.